Podcasts about questex

Paul Miller, CEO of Questex Paul Miller joins us to share his extensive experience in M&A, having led more than 90 acquisitions throughout his career. Paul reveals how Questex uses a proactive, buyer-led approach focused on culture, strategic alignment, and integration discipline. The conversation dives into the importance of early relationship-building with potential targets, auditing post-close success, and developing internal M&A capability—even when the team has no prior deal experience. Paul also shares candid advice on international deals, when to walk away, and how to avoid the common trap of "deal fever."

In this episode, Alexi Khajavi, President of Hospitality, Travel & Wellness at Questex, joins the Suite Spot to give listeners a preview of the upcoming NYU IHIF 2025 event taking place in New York City on June 1-June 3, 2025.  This industry event is one of the most elite hospitality investment forums in the world, so tune in to find out why you should attend and get your finger on the pulse of hospitality. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me. We've got an incredible, amazing episode with a very familiar face. If you're watching us and subscribed to our Travel Media Group YouTube channel or hearing us on any of the streaming platforms. That's Alexi Kajavi, Questex President, hospitality Travel and Wellness. Alexi, thank you so much for being back on the Suite Spot. Alexi Khajavi : Ryan, good to be here. Nice to see you. Ryan Embree: We almost have to credit you now as a co-host. You've been with us so many times. We've got even though it's a familiar face, a new topic, which we're gonna go get into. You've been on the Suite Spot before. We've had a couple conversations talking about your hospitality journey, some of the mentors along the way. I figured we'd start out today talking about your role. I see you, follow you on LinkedIn, your jet setting, all over the place, thought leadership everywhere. It's gotta be pretty cool in that position. Give us a day in the life of your position and what you do. Alexi Khajavi : So Questex is a medium sized information services company. We're B2B media at our core. We inform and we connect buyers and sellers, professionals across six industries. So the three that you mentioned, hospitality, travel, and wellness, are the markets that I have the privilege of running. And then I've got a counterpart that runs our life sciences, healthcare and technology. And we do that by publishing, daily editorial, writing about the industries, the trends, the topics we research. We have over 6 million first party data records. So these are individuals, names, titles, emails, contact information, but also really more importantly, their demographics and their behavioral, information. So what content they read, what are they engaging with, what are the premium pieces of content or research that they're downloading. And we use all of that to inform us as to what are the trends and topics that are impacting that industry, or different segments or categories of businesses within a vertical. And then we use that in turn to develop our programs at our events, to develop our content strategy, whether that be in digital or print. And we then work with the brands, the sellers in those industries to connect with those buyers. So, you know, prime example in hospitality would be investors are, you know, looking for, you know, enhanced guest experiences. So what are the technologies and the solutions in, in hotels that can do that? We'll position those brands specifically to buyers with buyers intent in the marketplace, looking for things like that. So that's what we do, and it's a really incredible industry to be in, and very exciting. And at our core, it's a noble pursuit of informing and connecting professionals in these industries. Ryan Embree: Well, I'm sure, Alexi, you have a very unique perspective, getting to see really a 360 view of travel, hospitality, and wellness between all the data, the conversations that you're having with you know, some of these buyers and sellers. And that's really, is a great segue into what we're gonna talk about today. 'cause we're gonna turn our attention to the NYU IHIF event. Questex got involved with this event recently. You just preached the importance of using feedback and data. I'm curious,

In the dynamic and ever-evolving hair and beauty world, where passion, creativity, and connection make for a truly rewarding career, neurodiversity often remains an unspoken part of the conversation. This panel discussion, recorded live at International Beauty Show NY 2025, recognizes that many neurodivergent beauty professionals face barriers—from misunderstanding to a lack of tailored support— pulls back the curtain on these layered experiences and explores how we can show up with more curiosity and understanding to experiences of neurodiverse staff and clients alike. Expect candid stories from the salon floor, shared laughs, and some profound "aha!" moments as we address the gap between what's expected and what's possible and engage in a curious inquiry of what new ways of working could look like. Hosted and moderated by Keya Neal (@keyaartistically on Instagram), Founder of Kolour Kulture & Texture VS Race, Color Educator, DEI Consultant. Panelists: • Dawn Bradley (@dawnbradley on Instagram), Rock Your Business & The Anxious Creative Podcast • Kitt Spata (@kittspata on Instagram), Youphoria Studios • Kate Owens Heins (@kateilovehair on Instagram), CEO & Founder of The Sensory Safe Solution Produced by Questex and presented by American Salon, International Beauty Show New York is the longest-running professional beauty event in the country. Connecting beauty professionals with the best in the industry, the show brings hundreds of top beauty brands together under one roof for free educational classes by industry legends, workshops, and exclusive show-floor discounts. For more information, visit ibsnewyork.com. Enjoyed the episode? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Click here to subscribe to the PhorestFM email newsletter or here to learn more about Phorest Salon Software. This episode was edited and mixed by Audio Z: Montreal's cutting-edge post-production studio for creative minds looking to have their vision professionally produced and mixed. Great music makes great moments.

Ellen Lampert-Gréaux works at Questex as Live Design/LDI Creative Director. Ellen started at LDI in 1988, the very first LDI was in Dallas, this will be her 37th year. Ellen is a writer, editor, conference organizer for Live Design/LDI she is from Philadelphia and went to college in Brooklyn. Ellen is the editor-in-chief of Harbour Magazine for Saint Barth and Saint Martin and Organizes The St Barth Film Festival “Cinéma Caraïbes” this year was the 27th edition of "Caribbean Cinema", from May 1 to 4, 2024 I have known Ellen for a very long time but this is the first time she has been on the show, I am looking forward to hearing her incredible story and introducing LDI 2024 This epsiode is brought to you by ACT Entertainment and Main Light

Today, we're gearing up for one of the most exciting events in the broadband space – the 2024 Broadband Nation Expo in Washington, D.C. On this episode, we are joined by leadership at Questex to discuss why this expo is where leaders and innovators come together to talk about the future of broadband and digital inclusion.Recommended Links:Broadband Nation Expo Registration LinkAlejandro's LinkedIn

Check out the latest Suite Spot episode where President - Hospitality, Travel, & Wellness at Questex, Alexi Khajavi, sits down on the podcast to discuss the highly anticipated Hospitality Show 2024 in San Antonio, Texas! This special episode will cover what attendees can expect this year from the event, some urgent issues facing the hospitality industry, and how this event is bringing all the major players of hospitality together in one room. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have another incredible episode continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series, but we have an original TMG Hospitality Trailblazers, one of the first. Joining me again for the second time. Alexi Khajavi, President, Hospitality Travel and Wellness at Questex. Alexi, thank you so much for joining me once again on the Suite Spot. Alexi Khajavi : Great to see you, Ryan. Ryan Embree: Yeah, we've got a lot to cover. Lots change since we spoke just last year. We've got a very fast moving industry with travel, a lot of positive changes, and we're gonna get to some of those a little bit later. But with this being the second time, we kicked off last episode talking about your hospitality and travel journey and what led you to Questex, but I wanna talk about mentor, right? We're still kind of combating this staffing shortage right now, and we wanna talk about maybe some of the mentors or influences in your career, and then speak to maybe the importance of mentors right now as we try to combat this staffing shortage, especially in an industry like hospitality. Alexi Khajavi : Yeah. I would love to. It's an important topic. Ryan Embree: You wanna go ahead and share some of maybe the mentors in your hospitality career, or influences in your career? Alexi Khajavi : Yeah, you know, I've had a really diverse career in travel and hospitality. I mean, it started out in San Francisco in the sort of the ".com" era of 1997 to, you know, 2001, 2002. And I had the fortune of joining an early stage OTA. There was three OTAs that launched ironically in 1997. One was booking.com and one was Expedia. And I joined the third one.

Let's say 2023 was not quite the year of deal-making within the industry. Then what does the future have in stock for #hospitality and #realestate? Alexi Khajavi President Hospitality, Travel and Wellness at Questex set down with Flo at last week's IHIF to discuss trends, the role of technology and his personal “meandering” career journey. Alexi and his team are deeply embedded in the #hospitalityindustry and run events to inform and connect industry insiders around the globe. With the help of the Investor Sentiment Index and at least one ear on the track at all times, they have been spotting trends from afar for 25 years. And they have good news: there are great opportunities for the industry - in trends like senior living and also, strangely enough, in the epidemic of loneliness that is roaming the world. Like Flo said, “This was a really inspiring and insightful conversation.” , so we highly recommend you tune in to the full episode. Enjoy the show!

Welcome to another insightful episode of The Association 100 podcast. In this engaging discussion, we're joined by Ellen Savage, Senior Director of Membership at the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). With a storied career in the association space, Ellen shares her path to TIA and the organization's ambitious Broadband Nation program, aimed at addressing America's digital divide. Key Highlights: Career Journey: Ellen traces her journey from her early days in the tech industry to pivotal roles at the Consumer Technology Association and Manufactured Housing Institute, leading up to her impactful work just underway at TIA. Broadband Nation: Tackling the challenge of reliable internet access, TIA's Broadband Nation program stands out as a concerted effort to ensure broadband for all, highlighting the critical need for a skilled workforce to achieve this goal. Workforce Development: With over $42 billion earmarked by Congress for broadband expansion, Ellen emphasizes the urgency of workforce development to meet the ambitious targets of deploying networks by the decade's end. Innovative Partnerships: Ellen discusses TIA's innovative collaborations, including a partnership with Questex to launch a jobs portal and expo, aiming to attract talent to the telecom industry. Navigating Change: From addressing workforce shortages to fostering state-level partnerships, Ellen offers a deep dive into TIA's strategies for overcoming industry challenges and shaping a more connected future. Join us as Ellen Savage provides a compelling look into how TIA is not just navigating but leading the charge in telecommunications, ensuring that advancements in technology translate into tangible benefits for all. Her insights offer invaluable lessons for association professionals striving to make a difference in their sectors. Subscribe to The Association 100 podcast on Spotify to ensure you never miss an episode, and follow us for the latest in association trends and strategies. Resources:Learn more about TIA's Broadband Nation program here: https://tiaonline.org/what-we-do/technology-programs/broadband-nation/  LinkedIn: /company/the-association-100 Stay tuned for more episodes exploring innovative solutions and leadership insights within the association world.

Marian Sandberg Started doing PR for Jack Kelly/Group One in 1996 and barely left the industry since!  Marian has diverse work experience spanning several industries and is currently the Vice President & Market Leader for LDI, DSE, and XLIVE at Questex. Prior to this, Marian worked at Informa from November 2016 to December 2019 as the Content Director for the Live Experience Group, where she was responsible for digital editorial, content strategy, video production, and conference content. Marian also shaped brand marketing strategy and monitored site metrics to optimize practices. Before Informa, Marian was the Editor at Live Design Magazine from February 2004 to November 2016.  Marian also completed the New York Iron Man in September 2023 which is a huge achievement.  This episode sponsored by Roe and Stratum Productions. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/geezersofgear/message

Welcome back to another episode of Production Value Matters with Matthew Byrne! This time, he's joined by Dianna Vollmer, the current Director of Events and Customer Experience at Questex. Together they discuss the importance of finding a work-life balance in the events industry to prevent burnout and ensure you prioritize your own mental health.

Gamification is all about making your events engaging, fun, and memorable. It's a powerful tool that can drive attendance, boost engagement, create a buzz around your event, and leave a lasting impact. In this episode of The Events Cast Podcast, we're going to explore some gamification strategies that can transform your events from ordinary to extraordinary. Joining the conversation we have the pleasure to be speaking with Richard Watanabe, Senior Marketing Manager at Questex. Tune in to learn how to supercharge your event marketing efforts with gamification. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a 5-star review and share the episode with a colleague or friend   Find out more at: www.theeventscast.com/richard   Follow or send us a message On Instagram: www.instagram.com/theeventscast On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-events-cast/

Today's podcast guest is Alexi Khajavi, President of Hospitality & Travel for Questex, LLC, a global business intelligence company that informs and connects buyers and sellers across hospitality, travel, healthcare, wellness, and technology. We discuss: -How everybody is accountable to someone -His adventurous nature, study of anthropology, and passion for travel -That leadership is about how you live your life and how you make decisions -The people you surround yourself with, regardless of their title, is critically important for your success -His belief in the importance of conversing directly, openly, and often with customers. "Pick up the phone, hop on a plane". -The trend of companies using external events for internal culture building More about Alexi: He is responsible for the overall management and development of the company's global hospitality and travel communications properties and events including notable flagship assets like the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF) Summit Series, The Bar & Restaurant Expo, Ultra Travel Summit, Luxury Travel Advisor, Hospitality Insights, HOTEC and the Destination Develop investment promotion arm. Khajavi, who brings more than 20 years of travel, technology, hospitality, media and aviation experience to his position, joined Questex in 2014 as head of Hospitality and Hotel Investment. Prior to joining Questex, Khajavi was senior vice president, global strategy, for MercuryCSC, a creative agency specializing in the travel industry where he helped design global marketing campaigns for hotel companies, tourism boards and active lifestyle brands. Prior to MercuryCSC, he was one of the founding team members of the travel consortium Nature Group based in Costa Rica and helped lead the airline and hospitality portfolio to be awarded the fastest growing travel company in Central America between 2003 and 2010 and the world's first carbon neutral airline in 2005. Khajavi has been a board member and advisor to a number of non-profits and tech companies including the Center for Responsible Travel at Stanford University, The Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health, Sustainable Travel International and KERBspace an early stage startup in the revolutionizing the electric vehicle charging stations for the built environment. Khajavi holds a B.A from the University of California Santa Cruz, graduating Magna Cum Laude, with distinction and honors.

Ahead of the Annual Hotel Conference in Manchester, we welcome Joe Stather of Questex to discuss findings of Questex's latest quarterly investor sentiment survey; moderating demand, a withering tailwind as business demand starts to level off, and investors still staring at the bid-ask spread and wondering at what price they can get back into the market. The Annual Hotel Conference takes place in Manchester 11-12 September.

Welcome to IoT Coffee Talk #161 where we have a chat about all things IoT over a cup of coffee or two with some of the industry's leading business minds, thought leaders and technologists in a totally unscripted, organic format. Thanks for joining us. Sit back with a cup of Joe and enjoy the morning banter.In this week's episode, Steve, Leonard, Marc, and Rob jump on Web3 to talk about the foundation of IoT, the sensor as Leonard and Steve attend Questex's Fierce Electronics' Sensor Converge 2023 event in Santa Clara, CA. It is the largest sensor trade show in North America and possibly the world. We talk about embedded AI at the edge and on the sensor, HPE's Discover 2023 event and the hybrid cloud phenomenon, spit wads from the back of the station wagon, hybrid cloud, and the hard engineering that goes into the under-appreciated sensor. Thanks for listening to us! Watch episodes at http://iotcoffeetalk.com/. Your hosts include Leonard Lee, Stephanie Atkinson, Marc Pous, David Vasquez, Rob Tiffany, Bill Pugh, Rick Bullotta and special guests. We support Elevate Our Kids to bridge the digital divide by bringing K-12 computing devices and connectivity to support kids' education in under-resourced communities. Please donate.

Join Suite Spot Host, Ryan Embree, as he covers the top 5 takeaways from the inaugural event of The Hospitality Show presented by Questex and the AHLA. Suite Spot Podcast · 115 - The Hospitality Show: 5 Key Takeaways Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embry for a special edition of the Suite Spot. We teased it on social media. Hopefully you are tuning in. But we are here for our five key takeaways from the Hospitality Show, which just happened here at the end of June, 2023 at the Beautiful Venetian. This was an inaugural event. We had been talking about this for a while. We had the opportunity to show up to the hospitality show as press and media interview some of the industry's top influencers. So if you get the opportunity, head to our YouTube page, follow us on social media. We're gonna be posting all of those great interviews, insights, and data. Everyone we talk to at the Hospitality Show over in Vegas to our YouTube page. So check that out. But today we are going to be talking about the top five takeaways from the event. This was filled with some incredible panelists and guest speakers at this event. That's why I love these industry events so much. And I was interviewing someone at the hospitality show, and I know we always talk about this pent up demand for travel, but it certainly feels like there's been some pent up demand for these industry events. It's so industry to get these blend of industry leaders cuz you get just such different perspectives that sometimes we get siloed in, uh, for a brand show or other industry events. So this hospitality show was certainly special because it had a lot of point of views, but even though there were some competitors at this show, there was a lot that we agreed on here. And one of the biggest things, and my first key takeaway is staffing continues to plague our industry right now. A H l A did that study recently that found 82% of hotels are still struggling with staffing shortage. That's just an absolutely crazy number to think of where we started and during the pandemic, we were furloughing so many and that's, that's really where the panelists kind of started. And, and it's such a u unique perspective cuz we talked about the millions that went into furlough during the pandemic and how there could be some that have left our industry for good. We've never had and experienced a wave of hospitality professionals leave our industry and choose not to come back. So what's happening now is this, uh, very unique opportunity for people that have never been in our industry before. Right? If I'm switching from one hotel to another, I'm familiar with the whole check-in checkout process. Property management systems might be different here and there, but I understand all the complexities of working in a hotel as a hospitality professional. Now, the people that are coming into our industry, they might not understand those at first. So we've gotta do a better job of kind of simplifying these processes for people new to our industry. And that's a big challenge that they talked about at the Hospitality show, is figuring out ways that we can make our processes more efficient. So someone that might have not worked in the hotel industry but before can come in and seamlessly really get into a groove into their role because that first 90 days is absolutely critical to retention for our employees. That's why things like TMGs respond and resolve and responding to reviews and taking that off the plate of our employees is so important because that could be someth...

Deanna Vollmer is the Director of Events and Customer Experience at Questex and shares what she's learned along her journey so far. We discussed:Deanna's career path (2:25)Discovering the hospitality industry (2:41)First job in meeting planning (4:17)Importance of understanding customer needs in events (6:50)Staying inspired and up-to-date on industry trends (9:22)Incorporating theatrics and unique elements (11:46)Importance of networking and conversations (12:38)Focus on customer experience and differentiation (12:58)Incorporating wellness elements in events (14:19)Follow Deanna on LinkedInWhat did you think about this episode? Join the Hospitality Daily community on LinkedIn and share your thoughts. If you care about hospitality, check out the Masters of Moments podcast where Jake Wurzak interviews top leaders in hospitality. His conversations with Bashar Wali and Matt Marquis are a great place to start, but also check out his solo episodes such as how he underwrites investment deals and a deep dive into GP fees you know about. Music by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

Join Suite Spot podcast host, Ryan Embree as he welcomes the President of Questex, Alexi Khajavi, as an official TMG Hospitality Trailblazer! These two hospitality-focused individuals discuss some incredible travel and tourism subjects in this episode, giving viewers great insight into the industry's current state. This episode is full of content from conversations regarding trends like staffing shortages, event & group travel, and an inside look at the inaugural launch of The Hospitality Show. Suite Spot Podcast · 113 - TMG Hospitality Trailblazers: Alexi Khajavi Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in, and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. We are gonna be continuing our TMG Hospitality Trailblazers series. We are having such fun with this series. Again, if this is the first time you're hearing this. This series is all about those people and groups that are pushing our hospitality industry forward. We've had a lot of hotel management companies, some brands on this. We're gonna take a little bit wider lens today. This is called TMG Hospitality Trailblazers. We're gonna look at the travel industry as a whole, and I think that's a perfect segue into an introduction to our guest, Alexi Khajavi, president Questex, hospitality, travel and wellness. Alexi, welcome to the Suite Spot. Alexi Khajavi: Thanks, Ryan. It's good to be here. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Well, this is your first time on the Suite Spot. We always love to essentially start our episodes the exact same way because as we know in hospitality, some people are born into it. Some people just find it, you know, some people, a lot of people say, "Hey, I want to be the guy at the hotel", or "I want to be the guy that's making all these memories within the travel industry". Where did your journey start and what led you to Questex? Alexi Khajavi: Well, you know, both my parents were big travelers, you know, so we, we were always, you know, trying to plan the next trip. So, travel's been a part of my life, you know, since being a little child. You know, ultimately, even professionally, however, I graduated from the UC of California. I came outta that and joined, you know, a tour operator that was doing some early educational trips to Cuba. Traveled around, you know, and was, and was paid to do. So, I then got into the early tech scene in, you know, the early .com, 1997 to 2001, a tech startup called unexplored.com. And really since then, I've, I've been in travel and I've been in on the marketing and sales side of travel and hospitality, lived overseas multiple times, running hotels, running airlines, and then ran an, an advertising agency based off of the travel and hotel space. So we were working with destinations, we were working with hotel companies, and then was introduced to Questex back in 2014. And the event space was something I didn't have a lot of direct experience in, but the ability to connect buyers and sellers, particularly in travel and hospitality, where face-to-face is so critical, was really the pinnacle moment for me to see that as being just an incredible culmination of my prior experiences, my love of travel, my love of hospitality, and the opportunity to bring both buyers and sellers together. And that's really been the beauty of Questex is, is that we inform, we connect, and we're able to do that both on the digital platform side as well as in the live engagement side. So it's a really nice, opportunity. I've been doing it, you know, for the last eight years now. Ryan Embree: Yeah. You know,

Today, we're learning from Paul Miller, CEO of Questex, and in our discussion, we cover:Background on the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment ConferenceWhy events matter now (2:26)What's changed post-pandemic in what we want from events (4:05)Trends and opportunities in events (4:57)Creating a "Coachella experience" in B2B events (7:37)The case for investing in hospitality (9:14)To learn more about Paul Miller and his work: Follow Paul on LinkedInVisit the Questex websiteLearn more about the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment ConferenceWhat did you think about this episode? Join the Hospitality Daily community on LinkedIn and share your thoughts. If you care about hospitality, check out the Masters of Moments podcast where Jake Wurzak interviews top leaders in hospitality. His conversations with Bashar Wali and Matt Marquis are a great place to start, but also check out his solo episodes such as how he underwrites investment deals and a deep dive into GP fees you know about. Music by Clay Bassford of Bespoke Sound: Music Identity Design for Hospitality Brands

A conversation with Joe Stather, VP market leader for operational real estate at Questex, ahead of the International Hospitality Investment Forum taking place 15-17 May in Berlin. The event's theme is “Fortune favours the bold” - so where should investors look for the best opportunities in the market, after the pandemic?

I already have an interview in the can, so to speak, for next week, but I wanted to do a short podcast that just features me droning on ... to provide some thoughts and ideas about the return of DSE. Assuming my travel plans weren't seriously messed up, I'm in Las Vegas today, getting set for tonight's Sixteen:Nine networking mixer. More than 400 people have registered and I was writing all kinds of "No ... Sorry" notes to a lot of people who didn't register before it sold out. I have been blown away by the interest in the event. It has always sold out, sometimes within 48 hours, but I had some doubts about what might happen this time around. It's been almost four years since I last did a mixer for DSE, and the show itself folded and then got rebooted by Questex.  Would I see 100 people? Maybe 200? I budgeted for 400, published the registration site, and sat back and watched as the tickets were quickly exhausted. The demand seen for those mixer tickets reflects, I think, what DSE is all about - getting the industry together for an event that's JUST about digital signage. I have always thought the show was as much about efficient networking and meetings as it was about being a technology showcase. I used to joke that DSE was like a Rotarians convention, except instead of people coming to represent their local chapter, people were coming from their companies. My sense is that's particularly true now, because a lot of people in this industry ecosystem have not seen each other in at least a couple of years. Yes, there have been trade shows going on, and yes lots of people are traveling again. But terrific shows like InfoComm and Integrated Systems Europe serve a lot of interests, and a hell of a lot of the people who attend have zero ties to digital signage. I did a wholly unscientific reader survey after the original DSE went under, to ask what people thought and what they did and did not like about the old show. The comment that has stuck with me ever since was from someone who said he or she liked DSE because they'd get to Vegas, and know the people, the technology, demos and events were all JUST about digital signage. There are a couple of Digital Signage Weeks, I know, in New York and London. I think the organizers do a good job of marketing the calendar of events, but it's kind of cobbled together with events that have somewhat tenuous ties. I have spoken with people who've gone to the DPAA conference, thinking digital signage, and left thinking they had no idea what the ad people were talking about. I've personally lived that. It's a small industry. People know each other, and as much as they compete with each other for business, they're also friends. An event like this is also super-efficient for people, whether they run a company or sell its pots and pans. You can fly all over the damn place to meet customers, prospects and partners, racking up air and hotel points. An event like DSE enables people to have a whole bunch of touches with people - dinners, drinks or chats in a hallway - out of one set of flights and a few hotel nights. Because the show is a reboot, there was undoubtedly lots of skepticism and reluctance to invest serious money into organizing a stand and everything that goes with that. The exhibitor count may not hit 100, and walking the show floor will not take long. I suspect there are vendors sending people this time out to check it out and make decisions about whether they book a stand for 2023. There are not, from what I can tell from the floor plan, any mega booths ... like what are evident at ISE and InfoComm. At the old ISE, Samsung had its own building! Some of the big display guys, like LG and PPDS (which is Philips), don't have any presence at DSE this year. There are some LED display companies showing, but there won't be a sea of screens like you might see at other, larger shows. Software companies had to adjust to new ways of marketing and selling during the pandemic, and I'm guessing a lot of them discovered that the demos they've traditionally done at booths were pretty effective using video conferencing and screen-sharing, and cheap as hell by comparison to a trade show booth. So I don't think we're ever going to see a DSE filled again with CMS company stands.  But I'd argue they were pulling back by 2019. So why go? Well ... there are always interesting companies that are new to the market - as start-ups or companies broadening both what they do and who they serve. At past DSEs, I always started off my walkabouts by going to the sides and back of the hall - where the start-ups with teeny budgets would get tabletops or 10 by 10s. I'd see companies I call head-shakers - because they clearly didn't do enough research before coming up with something that already exists. But I'd also bump into companies with interesting new takes on solutions. I've poked around the exhibitor list and identified several unfamiliar companies I want to check out. But I'm also eager to get updates and demos from well-established companies, and a small show means I have the luxury of time. I have left large shows, dead on my feet, knowing I never did see this or that. I want to see what's new with Sony. I can compare what ARHT Media does with its transparent LCD set-up, versus what I've seen with Photo. I can finally see the Looking Glass displays, which are kinda sorta holographic. A startup called SapientX - which I assumed was related to Publicis Sapient but isn't ... I don't think ... is showing an AI-driven chatbot avatar thingie. Vestaboard is there with a split flap display. I can get a better sense of how Google and Chrome OS now fit in digital signage, as it has a stand and people at the show. I don't know what Esper does, or WindowGrin, or Antron ... but I will after this week. And I'll be able to touch base and catch up with a pile of people and companies I know. I don't think there has to be a choose one decision about digital signage and trade shows. If you're serious about the business, and assuming the travel budget and time is available, you should go to a big pro AV trade show like an InfoComm or ISE, because all the latest display tech and infrastructure are shown there. And if digital signage is your tribe, your people, events like DSE are just as important to attend. If you are going to Vegas, safe travels and I'll see you around. I hope to do some interviews while in Las Vegas, and as I said at the top, I already have next week's podcast done - with a hologram expert hopefully clearing a little fog with respect to that much-abused technology term.  

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Digital Signage Experience is coming up in four weeks and I suspect a lot of people are very curious about how the long-running show will be rebooted by its new owners Questex. I certainly am, as I had long thought the old DSE was a dead trade show walking, and that something different was needed. Is this it? I dunno, and I guess the industry will find out in a few weeks in Las Vegas. I asked Marian Sandberg, who runs several shows for Questex, and David Drain, who was brought on by Questex to build the programming side of the event, to join me for a chat about what people can expect from a new and different DSE. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Hello, thank you for joining me. Maybe the first thing to do is: Marion and David, explain what your roles are at Questex and DSE.  Marian Sandberg: Sure. Thanks so much for having us, Dave. It's really an honor to be with you and your audience and to have an opportunity to talk about this.  I'm Marian. I am the Vice President and market leader for Questex. I oversee the DSE show, which we acquired last year, and we have not presented yet. It'll be presented in November, which is what we're gonna talk about, and I also oversee a show called LDI, which I know you'll have questions about. And market leaders tend at Questex tend to have two or three or whatever number of shows that they have under their portfolio?  Marian Sandberg: Sure, yeah, that's exactly right, and tend to be in verticals that make sense together, if you will. So I oversee a couple of brands that have to do in some way with technology. We have verticals in hospitality, bars and restaurants so they're clumped together.  Okay, and David?  David Drain: David Drain. I'm the director of event programs for DSE. So DSE is my sole focus at Questex.  And a lot of industry people would know you from your dark past with Net World Alliance and The Digital Signage Association? David Drain: Yeah, it changed the name to Digital Screen Media Association for a while. So you've been around the industry forever?  David Drain: Yeah, I have. I attended the first DSE in 2007.  Yeah, that's early. I think the first one was in 2005 or something like that or maybe in 2004. David Drain: 2004, but I wasn't there.  Yeah. I started in 2005, so I've been going even longer than you.  David Drain: Yeah, you win! Marian Sandberg: I can beat you both, but not in the digital signage area with our LDI show. I've been with that brand since 2004, so a little one-upsmanship there.  There you go. You must be so proud. Alright. So how is planning going? As we're speaking, it's about four and a half weeks out.  Marian Sandberg: It's going great. We're super excited and when we get to this part of the year, frankly, because this has been more than a year in the making we're just ready to get out there and produce the show. We definitely have in the weeks rolling up still sales to do, and still registrations to bring in. But in terms of producing the show and the things that we know we're gonna offer that's mostly set, right? So we have all these great networking experiences we're excited to put forth, and as we're right across the hall from our LDI show, we're really excited to see the synergies there. When we acquired this brand, we did a lot of due diligence. We spoke to tons of customers and tons of attendees, so those customers as well, to see what we should keep from the old show and what we should bring back, and I think the number one thing that we heard from people was maintaining the sense of community for the digital signage industry, that it's a dedicated show and that people still wanna come together in that community that maybe isn't addressed by other events. So that's been our number one focus, and we're in the home stretch now.  Yeah, I'd certainly got that impression as well when DSE went down. I thought that it was a show that for many years was in trouble. You could see it in the diminishing numbers and diminishing enthusiasm in a lot of ways. But the overarching thing I heard after it went down was a disappointment because there needed to be some sort of an annual event, at least in North America that really pulled together the industry, so to speak, and was the only thing people were talking about that week versus like an Infocomm or ISE or those kinds of shows, which certainly have digital signage as a component, but it's one component among many endings. You could bump into people in elevators and see they were going to the same show and realize we have nothing in common other than we're both generally in AV.  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, and I think that was obviously one of our main focuses from the beginning in acquiring the brand is we immediately saw the value we knew of the show and of the market, although no one on our team back then had worked directly in it, and then bringing professionals on who were very much veterans of the market, like Brad Gleason, who joined us very early on, and David, of course, who has been running a curating and will be running a fantastic education and content program. People have been really supportive of that effort and from the beginning saying, we absolutely want there to be a show in this market, specific to this market and there's a need for it.  Because the old show has had its hair, so to speak, there are things that people loved about it, things they didn't like about it. I've been referring to this as a DSE reboot that maybe isn't all that fair, but it's what I'm going with, and I'm curious what you think in terms of how would you position the show? Is this DSE 2 or should people go with the idea of don't expect what you saw before? Marian Sandberg: Yeah, and I think that's a great question because I think we would be really remiss if we did not acknowledge that we are bringing DSE back in a sense, right? We're not gonna abandon everything that DSE was and that we want it to be, and people have asked us for it to be. So we have no intention of reinventing the wheel in that case.  However, from our experience, and again from a lot of the outreach that we did, I think our intention is to put a new spin on it. Now, when you say, reboot, I absolutely agree, and I think that's gonna be maybe a little bit of a challenge for people to get their heads around. David has said it quite eloquently, we wanna really hold onto the things that people liked and maybe not the things that they didn't. So some of the new things, for example, which I guess we consider new. We know that networking opportunities have always been super important. So now that we're right across the hall from the LDI show, we are really trying to leverage those two audiences without cannibalizing, and I don't think there's a lot of potential to cannibalize those two audiences anyway. We hope to bring in some new people and some new buyers, and we're tracking our registrations very closely, of course, and the kind of demographics that we have. And to date, I checked them just yesterday in preparation for this, of course, half of our registrations have never been to DSE before. Now I'm not talking about LDI people, I'm talking about people registered directly for DSE and as event people, as event producers. That number is super encouraging to us. Now it could be in the last three years that we've just gotten more people in the industry. We all know that during the pandemic, on both sides of our business, people have left the industry, and people have come into the industry. It's just a natural ebb and flow when you haven't had a show in three years. But that number, even if you expect a lot of new people it is a great statistic for us that there are that many new faces. So we really hope that people coming to the network are gonna meet new people, but like-minded people like your reference before about having that sense of community and people who do similar things. But also that, of course, we want our exhibitors to meet new customers. So that's a really important thing for us. For the people who don't know LDI, can you explain what it is? I've never actually been myself, even though I've certainly heard of it. Marian Sandberg: LDI is a 30+ year organization and brand. It is a trade and show conference that addresses what we affectionately refer to as entertainment technology. So that would be basically everything in and around a stage except the performance. So concerts, touring, theatre, even clubs, venues, lighting, sound, staging all that kind of technology that goes around a performance or in a venue, and so a typical exhibitor at LDI would be moving light company, intelligent lighting as it's referred to in that in that sector or consoles. if you were at a concert and you wanna go up to the console guy or gal, ask for the set list, that stuff that's behind that in that pit is stuff that you would see at LDI. So there's technology and creativity factor there that I think sits well along DSE so maybe there are people who do similar, are somewhat like-minded, but do different things. So I think it'll be interesting to see, who crosses over and comes together,  Yeah, I guess the crossover as you say, more than anything would probably be the backdrop displays that you increasingly see with touring acts and the technology that drives those displays like LED backdrops and transparent or semi-transparent, LED backdrops, all that sort of thing. Marian Sandberg: Yeah, absolutely, and the sort of persona who would attend LDI could be anything from very creative type, Let's say a creative director for a show, a lighting designer, and then, someone those folks usually tend to be creative and technical, and then we'll have very technical people who are like tech technical directors at a theatre or production manager for a concert tour. And just like the way that AV and IT are worlds that are converging. The live events world and digital signage are converging to some degree because I spoke on a podcast a few months ago with the guy who does the wow factor stuff at the new arena in Seattle for the NHL team there and he was talking about programming at building not just what you see at the pre-show. It's the whole darn building that's coming together. I suspect that plays into how live events will increasingly be done.  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, it's interesting, we use the term, experiential, right? And immersive experiences and the thing that I think is so interesting, having come from that LDI world and that entertainment technology world is that, if you go to a theatre it, okay maybe immersive isn't the word, that kind of means something different. But experiential is what entertainment already is, right? You go to the theatre to experience something, you go to a musical or a concert tour, to be in this experience, and over the last few years, the way people are buying materials left and wanting to relish experiences. It's interesting how areas like retail and venue design and even museums are taking a cue from entertainment and that's what experiential really is, right? It's about being entertained more.  So in a way that sort of LDI world has been informing a lot of other businesses in our spaces. So exactly what you're saying is if you're walking down the street and all of a sudden you're seeing all this fabulous screen, that content is trying to draw you in. Cuz it's being paid attention to, cuz you have to work harder to get people's eyeballs these days.  Can we talk a little bit about where you're at in terms of numbers and how they would compare to the old DSE that we know?  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, absolutely, and I'm glad you brought up the reboot. We are thinking of it exactly the same way. So we don't have any intentions of trying to compete with the last 2019 DSE. We've had shows in our portfolio that was a record year and of course, the pandemic happening, we're cautiously optimistic about kind, trying to get back to those numbers. So especially with DSE that hasn't happened in three years, we don't think we're gonna replicate that in any way, and that's fine. Our goal for this show is to be between 4,000 and 5,000 registrations. We're absolutely on pace to hit those numbers. We're really pleased with the way registration has been picking up and people registering for content. The new certification that Bron Consulting is running for us. It's not new, we've newly added it let me be clear. It's the same certification you all know and love. So yeah, the numbers are really encouraging to us and I think what we're gonna see, I think is gonna be surprising for people in the next four weeks is how much our registration picks up, right before the show, traditionally the last six, to eight weeks of the show or when Red registration really hits, and we saw that from the numbers in 2019 also, right? So when we acquired the brand that's just the way the show paces we're absolutely on pace to hit that 4,000 to 5,000 number. Is that number unique registrations or is that roll up people from LDI who have opted to come over or whatever? Marian Sandberg: Nope, that's absolutely DSE distinct registration. For the LDI show in 2019, we had 16,000 people registered for LDI. But like an average for LDI would be 12,000 to 13,000. So the numbers for DSE are unique.  So Potentially you could have a couple thousand or more people drifting over from the other show hall to wandering into DSE, cuz I think you have reciprocity, you can get into one or the other.  Marian Sandberg: Yes, your badge for DSE or LDI can get you into either one or the other as well as there are some great offers and discounts for the conference on either side, which are obviously, paid conferences. But also some of the networking events that are being offered on both sides I think is gonna be really nice benefits. Just an example. LDI has always had great after-hours nightlife offers. With your badge, you can get into a different club each night, and if you don't know, the clubs in Vegas are very expensive, right? It's not like your $10 cover charge to go see a band at your local club. They're very expensive. We have great deals with LDI that we've been able to extend to the DSE audience to go to a club, for example. Your badge gets you into the club, for free, which can save in some cases 70 to 100 dollars a night, and then we have some networking events. There's an on-floor party if you will, a networking reception for LDI that DSE guests will be invited to, and vice versa, LDI people will be invited to the DSE opening reception, and we were really careful, obviously, to not have them overlap or compete with each other. Cause we want these two to come across the aisle, as it were. So I think that's gonna be interesting to see, and the LDI community, they're curious. They have that tech curiosity and that creative curiosity. So I think it is absolutely reasonable to think we might get a thousand or so people coming across. So you're at parity or maybe even ahead of, ultimately ahead of what past DSE have done in terms of headcount, and with the spillover from LDI, almost certainly, where I sense that it's not going as swimmingly would be on the exhibitor signup side?  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, we are where we've expected to be. I know that you love to look at the show floor as you should, and when we were in South Hall, when the show was in Southall, before my time, obviously, the show floor looked different. But I think that our expectations for relaunching the show were exactly where we wanted to be. We had expectations that were in line with, we have amazing exhibitors presenting, and we have over 90 varieties of exhibitor sponsors, people who are gonna be partners and presenting in some way, and I'm not talking about speakers, I'm talking about people on the show floor, and then I think probably in the next few weeks we're gonna see that number go over a hundred. So that's perfectly respectable, and we're proud of those numbers.  Yeah, in certain respects that's a reboot and it's a startup again cuz you're having to win the confidence of vendors who have had a rough couple of years anyways and when DSE went down, I don't know if all of 'em were left whole after that. That's somebody else's story in argument, but yeah it, you couldn't, I would imagine just expect that, hey, all you guys who used to do this, come on back.  Marian Sandberg: Yeah. There's so much more of a story to tell there too, isn't there? We have to regain some trust. We have to have people, who really loved that event and kind of look at us and say, Who the heck are you guys? Which is all stuff we expected. Early on when one of the first things we did was form an advisory board, and I know that you've reported on that, now. Probably everybody on our advisory board and really we wanted that input and that help, and that was just kind of part of the research we did from the beginning. What was good, what do we wanna change? And I just think that journey has also included spending a lot of time with customers and there's absolutely our sales team talking to people, 3, 4, 5 times. It's not a slam dunk and that's okay. We didn't expect it to be, We never came in here with. Some kind of ego that we're event producers. So we could just walk into a new industry and take over a brand and do it without thinking about it with our eyes closed.  We're good at producing events. We have a lot of leverage across our company with other verticals that we can look at to draw other buyers that maybe didn't come in from the acquisition, from our regular DSE lists, but we're really excited about presenting to those people. That kind of is where those first-time attendees are coming from. I'm also curious, you've mentioned the community a number of times and the appetite and aspiration for the industry to get together. If you build an event around attendees, particularly if you're offering a lot of free passes to get into the show proper, then you really have to lean heavily on the exhibitor dollars and sponsor dollars and all that to do it.  So does that become a challenge long term, that you've gotta build up that trade show side of it for this thing to work? Or can it work the way it's positioned right now?  Marian Sandberg: We intend to grow the show? There's no question, and David can talk a little bit about the conference program also but, of course, we need to have a viable business here. There's no question, and I think also, bringing in the right people and making sure that the audience is there was absolutely paramount for us, especially the first year. If you have the right people in the room and you have the right buyers in the room, the exhibitor's gonna be happy and they're gonna come back. And I think it's a two-sided coin. You have to keep feeding both of them, right? To make everyone happy. The attendees wanna see certain exhibitors, the exhibitors wanna see more of, X, Y, and Z types of attendees. Yeah, our long-term plan is absolutely to keep growing. And we'll see how that goes. We have some plans we won't I won't reveal yet for next year, but I'm sure we'll wanna talk after the show.  That was one other question I wanted to ask you, Marian, just before we jump over to David on programming and so on: for 2023, is it in November in Las Vegas? Marian Sandberg: Yes, and I bet you're gonna ask about the Formula One race. It will be in November, we are gonna move it about a week early. Yeah, we looked at that and thank goodness, being in production, we were hearing from all kinds of production folks about that kind of thing before it was even officially announced. We were talking to the LVCC about doing it earlier and, we could try to produce something during Formula One, which would just be crazy. But even just for our exhibitors and visitors, we don't want to position the show to make it cost-prohibitive for people even to stay in hotels or have hotels sold out. So just moving it about a week or so earlier is just gonna be the solution.  Yeah, that's gonna be like a CES week or something. Just insane pricing for everything and impossible to get around.  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, exactly.  Good move!  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, thanks.  David, tell me, you're somebody who has been to DSE many times, very familiar with it. So if people are coming up to you knowing that you're involved now and they're asking, okay, what's different, particularly on the programming and education side, what are you gonna tell them?  David Drain: When I first joined Questex, really my first job was to think about the program and to focus on the conference and the education and the speakers. And so wanted to do that first, and that's, I would say, how we built the program and ort of the exhibitors came later, right? They needed to see what it is you guys are gonna do? What's your plan? And working with Brad and with Marian we looked at the flow of the event and so I think it's got a slightly different flow. There used to be a lot of conference programming before the show happened, and so what you're gonna see this year there is some programming in the morning, just before the show opens. Some, a bit of uninterrupted time during the show floor hours with some on-floor sessions and then ending the day with more sessions. Really we have three keynotes. I don't know if DSE has done that before. So I think that's different. We will have one each morning. We're very excited about those, of course, Rafiq and Jason Cothern from SoFi Stadium talking about that 5 billion mixed-use development with the stadium and the retail and all that. Having everything from wayfinding to digital menu boards to of course the huge halo infinity screen by Samsung. So I think there's gonna be something there for everybody, and then, Nveen from Google, who you also interviewed for this podcast. We've got a great lineup and the program came together in three ways. There were things that I developed. There were things that are Association partners like DSF and DPAA and OAAA developed, and then we got session proposals from folks, so we really tried to curate the best agenda that we could and so I think that people will see an increased focus and concentration on the content and the programming, and building on what Marion said earlier, I think just the number of networking events throughout the week and then the crossover with LDI, I think that's what's gonna feel different. I heard there's a mixer on Wednesday night.  Marian Sandberg: Mixer. I'm so pleased that you're bringing it to our show. So we can't wait to attend and we're registered, so we're showing up.  Good. I'll make the bouncer aware.  One of the things as the education programming curator, person, organizer, whatever you wanna call it, is you, I suspect, have to walk a bit of a tightrope at times, because you have paying sponsors who perhaps have expectations, realistic or unrealistic around what they can say and do on the stage, and you have to balance those needs with the needs of the audience because God knows, maybe not in the most recent versions of DSE, but earlier year versions of it, one hell of a lot of the presentations were just like product pitches by sponsors, and I would sit down, listen for two minutes and I would go and leave, and that's a tough one to manage, isn't it?  David Drain: Yeah, and I've been managing these types of events for a number of years and so I certainly know about how important it is to make sure that it's got an education focused and so when I was building the program, really sponsorship had nothing to do with it. When I was building the conference program, what we determined as the best topics and the best speakers, and the program really came in process of building this show before the exhibitors that there really wasn't that kind of impact. We do have the on-floor sessions, and those are sponsored. We make that clear on the program.  Those are kinda product demos and things, right?  David Drain: They are product demos and even encouraging those speakers, those sponsors to have an education focus so they teach rather than pitch.  Yeah, I always tell people, look, if you just get up there and pitch, people are gonna leave. If you say smart things, you will leave the impression that this guy and or this woman and this company seem to know what they're talking about, so maybe I should have a chat with them after.  David Drain: Yeah, be a thought leader or present a case study, and then people will understand. You'll have an opportunity to tell them what your company does. You don't need to spend all that time going through the features and benefits of your product.  Without trying to put you on the spot, are there one or two sessions that you know that aren't keynotes but are ones that you think are gonna be particularly kick ass and ones that people should have a look at?  Marian Sandberg: You're asking to choose a favorite child. You're asking him to choose a favorite child, Dave. David Drain: Yeah. There are just a number of great sessions and if you go to our agenda, there is a way to filter by type. So if you're into digital out of home, you can see the programming aimed at that, and I'm excited you know about the session you're moderating and I'm really not blowing smoke here. Denny Levine came to me and proposed that session, and of course, he put together an all-star panel and people are very interested, obviously with these Vangogh experiences, immersive experiences that have popped up and been very successful around the world. So I think that will be similar, there's another session with Moment Factory and Dimensional Innovations on transforming lobbies into experiences, that's pretty exciting.  Yeah, you got some good people like Jackie Walker who was just like, when I talk to her, I just, I always hang up thinking, that's a smart person. She knows her stuff.  David Drain: Yes, and I listened to her podcast that she did with you and so certainly when she wanted to do a presentation, I'm like, yeah, I will just give you the room. You're gonna do great, and people will walk away with a lot of great information. All right, so wrapping this up. This has been a great chat. If people are undecided and are on the fence, but hearing this and think, oh, maybe I will go, what do they need to do? Where do they go to find out more about DSE?  Marian Sandberg: Yeah, they can go to digitalsignageexperience.com. As we rebranded also, so it's digitalsignageexperience.com, or if you have any questions, you can certainly just email me, I'd be happy to answer, and my email is msandberg@questex.com. I would love to have your feedback,  I suspect it's ddrain@questex.com, right? I'm smart that way, it had to be something. All right. Thank you so much for spending half an hour with me. That was terrific.  Marian Sandberg: Thanks for having us. We're honored.  David Drain: Thank you, Dave.

Chip Rogers is everywhere these days. On social media, at industry events and, most importantly, in Washington, advocating for the hospitality industry as the CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association or AHLA, the largest hotel association in the U.S. In this podcast, he talks about his career in advocacy, which began with elected positions in both the Georgia House and Senate. Chip is also a huge sports fan and talks about his love for both the Miami Dolphins and Boston Red Sox, even though he is a Georgia native. Before the talk, Chip and David Eisen, host of the Hotel Talk podcast, are joined by AHLA EVP and COO Kevin Carey to discuss The Hospitality Show, a new conference June 27-29, 2023, at The Venetian Las Vegas. The event is a partnership between the AHLA and Questex that will bring together owners with teams of senior-level decision makers from operations, IT, revenue management, F&B, procurement, housekeeping, finance, HR and legal to accelerate hospitality to profitability.

In conversation with Joe Stather of Questex, talking operational real estate and how other sectors are learning from hotels. Reflecting on Hotel Analyst's OpRE event, as well as looking forward to the upcoming Annual Hotel Conference.

We caught up with Alexi Khjavi, President, Hotel, Travel & Wellness with Questex to discuss how hotel industry professionals, suppliers and other players are looking for more cohesive ways to bring together disprate industry parts like tech, financing, design and more. 

Bill Fairman 00:00:02 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show. Our whole theme. This month has been about financial freedom and we are going to discuss this, to discuss what financial freedom is for each of us, Jonathan, Wendy, and myself, right after this greetings everyone. Bill Wendy, Jonathan. We are Carolina capital management. And thank you so much for joining us on the real estate investor show hard moneyed, real estate investors. What   Wendy Sweet 00:00:48 We've been running up the steps. You can't get your breath.   Bill Fairman 00:00:51 We have been running around a lot. We're getting   Wendy Sweet 00:00:52 Ready to leave   Bill Fairman 00:00:54 For the quest expo. So we're trying to put all our stuff together. So where was I? Who   Wendy Sweet 00:01:00 Are we and where, what we do?   Bill Fairman 00:01:01 We are here, Carolina, capital management. We are lenders in the Southeast for real estate professionals. 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We won't go there. But that was a neat little graphic. Wasn't it? Yeah, it was, it was, as I was saying earlier, we're on our way to   Wendy Sweet 00:02:19 Questex quest   Bill Fairman 00:02:20 Quest expo.   Wendy Sweet 00:02:22 Yeah. Which is in Houston, right?   Bill Fairman 00:02:25 Yes. I was waiting for the final quest expo graphics.   Wendy Sweet 00:02:31 So ETT Smith will be there. I'm excited about that. I really like him. He's he's pretty awesome.   Bill Fairman 00:02:36 Yeah. I got to meet him about five years ago at another conference. He's been, I'm not about that. He a real estate investor for many, many years. So he's not just there because he is a pretty   Wendy Sweet 00:02:44 Face. He's not just a pretty face. He's a smart guy too. That's   Bill Fairman 00:02:47 Awesome. By the way, the Wednesdays with Wendy, you can get on her calendar because she's usually booked up a couple of months in advance and it's gonna be over there in the comment section. So just click it on and get on our calendar there. Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't got your tickets yet for quest expo, I'm sure you can get 'em at it. It's   Wendy Sweet 00:03:08 Not too   Bill Fairman 00:03:08 Late at, at a discount with using our code. Yeah. But your airplane, ticket's probably gonna be pretty expensive.   Wendy Sweet 00:03:15 Yeah. Unless you're already in Houston because for   Bill Fairman 00:03:17 Close by. Yeah. Or you could drive there. Yeah. All right. So let's get the breaking news.   Wendy Sweet 00:03:44 The, the sky is falling.   Bill Fairman 00:03:45 How many of you have surround sound on your device that you're listening to us? Rob?   Jonathan Davis 00:03:50 I was gonna say, you know,   Wendy Sweet 00:03:51 The sky is falling. Stocks are falling.   Jonathan Davis 00:03:53 The, the fed raises are up the fed raised at 75 bases points. Volker is proud. Vulgar is gives the chairman from the early eighties.   Wendy Sweet 00:04:08 Voker yeah.   Bill Fairman 00:04:09 Yeah.   Wendy Sweet 00:04:09 It's   Bill Fairman 00:04:10 Been a while. So here's to sum up our breaking news rates are high stock market low   Jonathan Davis 00:04:16 To, to, to sum rates are normal. Yeah. Yeah. For answer normal. They're not high higher. They higher than, than the historic low of 1.9. 5%. Yes.   Wendy Sweet 00:04:28 Yes. But, but, and people need to remember that when the fed raises the rates, mortgage rates usually drop a little bit. So,   Jonathan Davis 00:04:37 Well the average just crossed the 6% to 6.02. Oh, I know. Well, I mean, it's up from 1.95. So you're, you're sitting at like, yeah, right at six and you   Bill Fairman 00:04:50 Know, so the fed chairman and this comments and press conference afterwards basically said, we're gonna have another 75 basis points to raise in January. They'll at that point, they're gonna let the data, see where it goes. But frankly,   Wendy Sweet 00:05:11 Prices come down on everything. Yes.   Bill Fairman 00:05:13 But they're looking at 2025 before they think, right. We will be out of a recession, so to speak. They, they keep saying, they don't know whether it's gonna be a recession or not, but it's gonna take until 2 25 to work this through the system. They want to have a higher unemployment rate and they want,   Jonathan Davis 00:05:36 We're not sure if it's a recession, but if it is, that's what we want. It'll be 20, 25 before it's over. Yeah. But we're not saying it's,   Bill Fairman 00:05:43 It's, it's gonna take a while to move all this thing through the system. Yeah. That said they   Wendy Sweet 00:05:47 Want prices to come down. That's bottom   Bill Fairman 00:05:49 Line. I'm pretty old. And I have lived through many, a downturn. I remember before I even got my driver's license sitting in the gas lines, I bought my first house when Jimmy Carter was president.   Jonathan Davis 00:06:02 Oh, I thought they were on steam at that point.   Bill Fairman 00:06:05 But my pretty much my, my whole point to this is it's not the end of the world. You just have to manage your expectations. Gotta   Wendy Sweet 00:06:13 Roll with the changes should   Bill Fairman 00:06:15 Be something. And there, there have been real estate investors when rates are high, the real estate investors, when rates are low, when prices are high and when prices are low, that's the thing about being a real estate investor is that you're a problem solver. That's right. And there's always gonna be problems.   Wendy Sweet 00:06:32 That's right.   Jonathan Davis 00:06:33 Right. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm a problem survivor.   Wendy Sweet 00:06:37 It does feel that way. Sometimes   Bill Fairman 00:06:39 You're a problem creator.   Jonathan Davis 00:06:42 Well,   Bill Fairman 00:06:43 But if you know how to create him, you know how to fix him. Right.   Wendy Sweet 00:06:46 He's just, practicing's putting on practice for himself. That's   Bill Fairman 00:06:48 Right. So our theme this month has been, you know, financial freedom, how to get there. Your   Jonathan Davis 00:06:55 And members go ahead. Before, before we get there, just, just to give a little more backstory or not backstory, a little more data. Like for the inflation numbers we are using inflation is, is measured year over year. So it's, you know, August of this year to August of last year. Well, we didn't cease inflation above 3% until October of 2021. Right? So this October, when we can compare those first inflationary numbers to the year over year, that's gonna give us a better idea. That's gonna give the fed a better idea of what's going on. Right. Is it, is it, is it staying around seven to 8%? Is it nine? Or is it, is it two? You know, and if, if those numbers come out and they're a lot lower, then that that rate probably won't happen. That rate rise won't happen in January, but with what three and a half percent unemployment, 11 million jobs still unfulfilled, you know, everyone's fighting for talent and over, I'll use the word overpay   Wendy Sweet 00:08:03 That is everybody doing for work? I don't understand. Yeah. Where did all the employees go?   Jonathan Davis 00:08:10 Well, and so everyone's fighting for new employees or the, the higher and they're overpaying and now will, and it is   Wendy Sweet 00:08:16 Overpaying. Oh yeah, no doubt.   Jonathan Davis 00:08:17 And that is one of the key ingredients to inflation. Yeah. And that's one of the key ingredients to the inflationary numbers and why they're so high is the, the income, or I guess the, you know, the average salary or monthly, you know, wage has increased dramatically in a short period of time,   Wendy Sweet 00:08:35 $15 to flipping a hamburger. That's pretty strong.   Bill Fairman 00:08:39 Well, to me, it's the energy that's what's causing inflation. Energy is a part of every single piece of our economy. Well,   Jonathan Davis 00:08:50 Gas is going down bill   Wendy Sweet 00:08:52 Way down. That's,   Jonathan Davis 00:08:53 It's not $5 anymore.   Wendy Sweet 00:08:55 I just paid for 4 29 a gallon this morning.   Bill Fairman 00:08:59 But if we continue to try and listen, I'm, I'm in awe of the above, but you can't just cut one off and start another. Right. Because right now the other is not very reliable and it's not inexpensive to operate. Yeah.   Jonathan Davis 00:09:15 Yeah. And the question, I think Scott said, well, wages drop. Yeah. The question is when, cause   Wendy Sweet 00:09:22 You know, as soon as we have an Bundance of employees, well,   Jonathan Davis 00:09:24 It's, it's that, but you know the cause what, what is that doing with those higher wages it's causing the cost of goods to, to go up,   Wendy Sweet 00:09:32 Continue and shipping costs too. I mean, that adds a whole lot to it. That's gonna be hard to reverse that. I   Jonathan Davis 00:09:38 Think, yeah.   Bill Fairman 00:09:39 I disagree with you. Okay. I think love it. I think, I think wage point counterpoint wages, wages are sticky. You can't even say, and you can't once you've you can't put the toothpaste back into two.   Wendy Sweet 00:09:50 Yeah. That's true. However,   Bill Fairman 00:09:51 They can find other ways to be more productive so they don't have to pay as many people. Does that make sense? Like more,   Jonathan Davis 01:10:00 I would agree with you if we, if we passed a law federally that the new minimum wage is $15 an hour, if that had happened, I would agree with you. However, that has not happened. And wages are dependent on where you are. Yeah, no agree. And the federal mandate is seven and a quarter still or the seven and a half. Right. There are at seven. So is it sticky because it's double what the minimum wage requirement is. I'm not sure I'd use the word sticky   Bill Fairman 01:10:33 Again. That's good. It's a lot like real estate it's location.   Wendy Sweet 01:10:38 Yeah. It is location driven.   Bill Fairman 01:10:39 And when, when you, when we end up and what the fed is hoping for is that we have a higher unemployment rate. Sure.   Jonathan Davis 01:10:46 Yeah.   Bill Fairman 01:10:46 Because you're, they're trying to take demand and get rid of it or at least lower it. And that's how they cure their, the inflation. Yeah. That's a sticky   Jonathan Davis 01:10:58 Question. Thank you.   Bill Fairman 01:11:00 But they're trying to do demand destruction right now and that's gonna cause unemployment rates to go up, which means fewer people will have jobs, which means there won't be as high a demand on increasing wages. Yeah.   Jonathan Davis 01:11:16 At   Bill Fairman 01:11:16 That point.   Jonathan Davis 01:11:17 And to clarify, no one, no employer is going to say, oh, now instead of paying you $15 an hour, we're gonna lower you down to 12. Right. Right.   Wendy Sweet 01:11:25 That're just gonna,   Jonathan Davis 01:11:26 That doesn't happen either. You have you a turnover and that person leaves or you help them leave. Right. Yeah. And then you hire in, at a lower   Wendy Sweet 01:11:35 Wage, right?   Jonathan Davis 01:11:36 Yeah. Or the other side of it is the wage appreciation just becomes stagnant. And that way it allows, you know, the cost of goods to catch to lower, which   Wendy Sweet 01:11:48 May be the 20, 25 number might   Jonathan Davis 01:11:50 Be, you know,   Bill Fairman 01:11:51 You get back to contract employees. That's where, where a contract employee started anyway, as wages were going up. And I, I don't wanna single at any particular company, but go ahead. Bank of America used to do that all the time. Yeah. They would eliminate certain departments or eliminate people in departments. They would lower 'em but then they would end up no same people would get jobs with contractors that were doing the same jobs they were doing before. But now they're working with another company who was under contract with bank of America, making less money. Yeah.   Jonathan Davis 01:12:22 Yeah.   Bill Fairman 01:12:23 And they didn't have to pay 'em benefits. And that kind of,   Jonathan Davis 01:12:25 I feel like you just proved my point. Well,   Bill Fairman 01:12:27 He I'm saying wages are sticky, but there's other ways to make 'em less expensive for the   Jonathan Davis 01:12:33 Less, less sticking.   Bill Fairman 01:12:35 Yeah. Less.   Wendy Sweet 01:12:36 I wonder too, what, how higher education is gonna come out on this? You know, because you know, to go to college, now you have to take out a loan. It's pretty sad. But, but it's, it's almost imperative that, that you borrow money to go into college unless your parents have been able to save money for you or you've worked to make that happen   Jonathan Davis 01:12:58 Or you don't   Wendy Sweet 01:12:59 Go that's right. And, and you know, I hate that they're considering this $10,000 or they might have already proved it. Reduction on what's owed on, on college education. I hate that they're doing that. We're teaching people not to be responsible, but I, I, you know, the college college tuition should come down. I don't know that it will, but I do believe there are a lot of people that will be coming out of high school learning trades rather than paying those high college prices.   Bill Fairman 01:13:34 There's a Senator. I hope that it is introducing a bill that wants the colleges to pay half that bill and also be more open about the income that their students, after they graduate are earning and that type of thing. And one of his comments was that he's tired of the universities charging extortion amount for tuition while teaching stupid stuff that has never happen. Like men getting pregnant.   Wendy Sweet 01:14:06 Yeah. That's a good one. Now. I don't   Bill Fairman 01:14:09 Know. I don't know how, how far that will go through, but at at least they're bringing it to the attention. All right. So we we're,   Wendy Sweet 01:14:18 I know we're close. We gotta keep moving.   Bill Fairman 01:14:19 We've been, we've been rattling on about the breaking news now. Yeah. For almost the entire session. Yeah.   Wendy Sweet 01:14:24 We're gonna solve the   Bill Fairman 01:14:25 World's problems. What's financial freedom to you, Jonathan.   Jonathan Davis 01:14:28 What is financial freedom to me, man? That I can, yeah, just up in it is appreciation depreciation and cash flow. Like that is what financial freedom is to me. What do I mean by that? It means I was, I was having a conversation with friend today and you have friends.   Wendy Sweet 01:14:52 I do have friends one at least one.   Jonathan Davis 01:14:54 Yeah. They'll never admit to it. But we were talking about how the credit unions are being saturated with more and more money because now the savings accounts are paying over a percent.   Wendy Sweet 01:15:08 Woo.   Jonathan Davis 01:15:08 What they're paying over percent. Wow.   Wendy Sweet 01:15:10 And   Jonathan Davis 01:15:11 You know, that's one of the things, you know, I think I use the word stupid money, but yeah, no, I, I still I'll keep with it. The stupid money.   Wendy Sweet 01:15:19 Yeah.   Jonathan Davis 01:15:19 Puts all their money there. Cuz I can make 1%. It's been paying 0.2, five before, but now can make   Wendy Sweet 01:15:25 1%. That's right. That's right.   Jonathan Davis 01:15:26 And inflation is how much, like you are losing at an eight, a negative eight one rate ratio. Right. So how about don't do that because you're giving them free money to lend out which well, you know, on the, on the lending side, people love it because that's what we were talking about. Like friend, he, you know, he would use their money to buy multifamily, but I guess I'm getting a long way. Like don't put your money there, put it in an asset that appreciates over time allows you to depreciate on your taxes for capital expenditures and then also gives you cash   Wendy Sweet 01:16:04 Flow. That's right. Like   Jonathan Davis 01:16:05 If you can, if you can cover all of those things, you will outpace inflation. You will outpace the stock market and you will be financially free. Now it's not an easy road. I was having dinner with a, with a guy the other day and we were talking about how expensive it can be, especially right now to own real estate and stay in it and not just sell or, or become a whole seller or   Wendy Sweet 01:16:31 What have you. Yeah. Taxes are up.   Jonathan Davis 01:16:32 Taxes are up all, you know, they've reassessed all the values when you know, they won't be reassess. Well they have to do it every five years. Yeah. It'll be a while. They won't be doing it at any time soon. Yeah. Right. So us taxes are gonna stay high. Yeah. So it is expensive and it is, it is difficult and it's not the easy path, but it is the one that leads to financial freedom.   Wendy Sweet 01:16:52 I agree. I agree. So for me, financial freedom is one sentence. My money working for me instead of me working for money. Yep. That's that's the bottom line and which is really what you're talking about. Yeah. I, I, you know, I will never retire and I let me knock on wood. When I say that I have no intention to ever retire and walk away from working. I enjoy it. You know, I I've got like a serious, you like having you around, well, I, you must want something. So I love real estate. I have a serious passion for real estate. All that entails real estate notes, you know, rentals, self storage, apartments, whatever it is. I love everything about real estate. It's just a passion for me. I don't ever wanna stop learning more and being involved in the art of the deal, which is my favorite part of real estate. I don't ever wanna stop that. But what I do want is the opportunity to say, I don't have to do this if I don't want to. Right. You know, I want my money to work for me. I wanna be able to go to sleep at night and know that I've got money. That's being deposited into my account. You   Jonathan Davis 01:18:09 Know? And, and you mentioned the art of the deal. I mean, that's one of the pieces of financial freedom is that when, when you do have that knowledge base and that drive and that, that determination to do deals and that desire, like you need the space to be able to do so. So part of that freedom is having the space to analyze deals, to look at them, cuz you can't analyze and look at deals and close 'em. If you're out there scrubbing toilets or cleaning up your   Wendy Sweet 01:18:36 Rentals. That's exactly right. So that's exactly right. And you know, a lot of people will say that part of their financial freedom is being able to lead their children a legacy, but they   Jonathan Davis 01:18:46 Can build their own legacy.   Wendy Sweet 01:18:47 I that, and you know what, I think I must be a terrible parent cuz I don't feel that way at all. I mean, sure. I would never want my kids to suffer, but my legacy to them is teaching them what I know, teaching them, what I do and their relationship with Jesus Christ is, you know, the number one legacy I'd love to, to leave with them so that they're always seeking him in what they do. But you know, I don't wanna leave a bucket full of money for them.   Jonathan Davis 01:19:13 We, I go back to, you know, Scott Patton who's, you know, running the show for us. One of the things that he said was, it's a saying, I think in Canada, short sleeve, long sleeve, short sleeve, and you know, the short sleeve is the guys out there working in the fields or, or what have you do a manual labor. And then they're, they, they build a legacy and then their sons become long sleeve. They, you know, work in an office, they get, you know, soft whatev what have you. And then the next generation of short sleeve again, because they had a soft generation prior. Yeah. So yeah. Good point. You want to instill more than more than you wanna hand out dollars to your kids or assets. You want to hand out,   Wendy Sweet 01:19:52 Give more fish and pole,   Jonathan Davis 01:19:53 Give em work ethic and the ability to, to do   Wendy Sweet 01:19:57 Things. That's right.   Bill Fairman 01:19:57 All right. So for me,   Wendy Sweet 02:20:00 We're out of time too   Bill Fairman 02:20:01 Close. Well   Wendy Sweet 02:20:05 That's airport   Bill Fairman 02:20:06 Financial freedom for me is doing what you want with whom you want when you want and not have to worry about where you're doing it. You know what I mean? At the   Wendy Sweet 02:20:18 Bar, you   Bill Fairman 02:20:19 Can go anywhere. You want to go and not have to worry that you're not being able to maintain that same lifestyle. Right. And with real estate, well here right   Jonathan Davis 02:20:29 Now, here's, I've heard transient people say they do that.   Bill Fairman 02:20:33 The, the stock market game right now, if you're a stock market person here's on now that the market is dropping here is the defensive play I'm gonna get into treasuries because the person that loses the least is the winner.   Wendy Sweet 02:20:50 Yeah. Now   Bill Fairman 02:20:51 How is that? How is that investing that is just grasping on to not losing when you're in real estate, you have an asset that continues to go up in value and it's paying you an income. And your whole goal there is to have essentially a balance that increases in value that you can live off of at the same time and keep that same lifestyle. Right. Right. And you wanna do it as passively as possible. So you can do what you want with whom you want when you want and where you want,   Jonathan Davis 02:21:22 You know, just finished up a, a book called mandals. And it's about, was   Bill Fairman 02:21:27 It a look about Dennis?   Jonathan Davis 02:21:28 It was not, you know, it was their actually their last name, not their, not their job, but   Wendy Sweet 02:21:35 What was it called   Jonathan Davis 02:21:36 Again? The mandals. So   Wendy Sweet 02:21:37 The mandals. Yeah, the mandals. Yeah, the   Jonathan Davis 02:21:40 Mandels okay. And it's, it's a dystopian book, very well written around economics. It's a lot of, you know, you get on professors, our characters in the, in the book, but basically it takes you, it's taking you through kind of what we're going through now. And then, you know, extrapolating that to like the worst case scenario. Yeah. Like the, the fall of, you know, our economy. Wow. Which in the book is, you know, because of some external forces as well as internal forces. But the thing that struck me in the book was with 30 and 40% inflation rates that they're, you know, talking about in the book on groceries and what have you, the only winners, or I don't even say you can say winner. The only people who survive at a semi comfortable rate are those who own real estate and those who own energy and those who control the produce. Interesting. Those are the only people who are doing okay. And just, okay. But again,   Wendy Sweet 02:22:45 So I got the chickens and the, the real estate covered. Yeah.   Jonathan Davis 02:22:50 Well, cause you   Bill Fairman 02:22:51 Just need to get the energy part that's right. Figure it out   Wendy Sweet 02:22:54 Really well.   Jonathan Davis 02:22:55 It's, it's a really good book. I've been listening to it on audible. I was actually, I listened to it, a good portion of it driving six hours. And I remember like, it sucks you in so well, it makes you feel how poor and awful things can be. I remember stopping at a gas station after listening to it. And I saw that the gas was like three 90 something, a gallon. I was like, I can't afford this. How am I gonna do this? And they're like, wait, wait, no, I'm, I'm not there. I'm here.   Bill Fairman 02:23:24 I'm not the book. All right. Folks. We were hitting out to. All right. Yeah. We gotta ask the question. Yeah. Our question for this week is would you like   Jonathan Davis 02:23:40 To take yeah. Yeah, sure. So with the stock market in, let's say turmoil cause it's right there. Yeah. Turmoil, tumultuous, tumultuous time is your money management in alignment with your goals? We we'd love to know that. I know a lot of people who have talked we've bill, Wendy, and I we've all talked to people who are moving money out of the stock market, which, you know, I understand, you know, six months ago would've been better, but you know, they feel that way too. Yeah. You know, what, what are, what are your goals? And you know, are you moving money outta stock market? Are you keeping it in? Are you moving into other assets? Which we'd love to know. Yeah.   Bill Fairman 02:24:24 You can't, you can't win when you're trying to time the market. Not too many people do. Right. Same thing with real estate. You don't time real estate. You get in it and you get in it at a price that makes sense for the numbers. Yeah. Same thing with the stock market. It's you get in with the numbers. Make sense. Yeah. But you certainly are gonna have less fluctuations and you're gonna have an asset that continues to grow in value in, in real estate. So folks, I'm gonna switch you over here to nothing about everything about me. Anyway. It was great. Having you on the show. We are Carolina capital management. This was the real estate investors show hard money for real estate investors. Like I said, we're Carolina capital management and we are private lenders in the Southeast for real estate investors. If you have a project you'd like to take us, you'd like for us to look at, go to Carolina, hard money.com and click on the apply. Now tab, if you're a passive investor and you wanna   Jonathan Davis 02:25:25 Get outta the stock   Bill Fairman 02:25:26 Market, looking for passive returns, go to the accredited investor tab. Don't forget to like share, subscribe, hit the bell. Hopefully we'll see you guys in Houston for quest expo this weekend. Don't forget about Wednesdays with Wendy. See you next week.

Walter Coles, President and CEO of Skeena Resources (TSX:SKE – NYSE:SKE) joins us to recap yesterday’s news announcing the acquisition of QuestEx Gold & Copper...

The Digitial Signage Federation & Questex partner up for DSE 2022, crafting a concise value proposition and AMX partners with Panopto for higher education control systems.

The Digitial Signage Federation & Questex partner up for DSE 2022, crafting a concise value proposition and AMX partners with Panopto for higher education control systems.

The Digitial Signage Federation & Questex partner up for DSE 2022, crafting a concise value proposition and AMX partners with Panopto for higher education control systems.

QuestEx Gold & Copper is currently engaged in the business of mineral exploration for the purpose of acquiring and advancing mineral properties located in the “Golden Triangle” and the “Toodoggone area” of British Columbia. QuestEx's main exploration projects include Castle, KSP, North ROK, Kingpin, Heart Peaks and Sofia.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT There is a whole pile of back seat driving happening lately in the pro AV and digital signage communities about how to run a trade show in the COVID-19 era, and much of the focus has squarely been on Dave Labuskes, the CEO of AVIXA, which runs InfoComm and co-owns the even larger trade show ISE. The show is happening in about a month in Orlando, and with other big trade shows saying never mind for 2021, there are endless questions and suggestions about the prospects of the show even happening. It will, says Labuskes, unless there are measures like government-mandated closures. Given that the show is in Florida, that's probably not going to happen. Labuskes has done some frank interviews lately that went into deep detail about InfoComm and COVID, and the business. I spoke with Labuskes late last week and did not see the value in rehashing and revisiting a lot of what he said, so in our chat we talk a little about how things will come off and why. But we spend a lot more time on bigger picture stuff about how trade shows fit, and whether a niche industry like digital signage can find a well-defined home and community at big, omni AV shows like Infocomm and ISE. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Mr Labuskes, thank you for joining me. I wanted to get into a number of things, but I also didn't want to just rehash some recent conversations you had in an hour long interview last week with Tim Albright from AVnation that went into a lot of frank discussion about where InfoComm is at and everything associated with that, but I can't cCompletely ignore that, and I just wanted to ask, where are things now , has anything changed in the last week since I watched that interview?  Dave Labuskes: Mr. Haynes, it's good to be here. There have been a couple of other events that have announced cancellations, but there's been nothing that's changed in AVIXA's policy with regards to InfoComm. We still see a runway to a fantastic event with fantastic people conducting fantastic business. It's been described as being the last trade show standing this fall, but that's not really true. There's all kinds of events going on here, there, and everywhere.  Dave Labuskes: Yeah. There's a lot that's described that isn't necessarily really true, David. But yeah there's events and trade shows happening every day, all around the world, and I'm actually a little confused. For an industry that is really based on overcoming challenges and doing the impossible and making things happen that nobody believed could actually happen, there is that sort of a sentiment that trade shows can't take place right now and that just simply is not true. They're taking place every day.  So I have mixed opinions personally. I was supposed to be doing a mixer down at InfoComm and decided not to do that, and that wasn't really so much about I don't think InfoComm should even happen or anything else, it was just as simply a fact of, I didn't quite see how a cocktail party, where everybody was wearing a mask and being asked to stand six feet apart would work terribly well and the optics were weird.  It's one of those things where I could see a trade show happening, but I didn't see that happening well, and we don't need to get into all of that. I'm curious more about whether or not you're enjoying all the armchair opinions from people who say what you should be doing, but have never actually run a tradeshow?  Dave Labuskes: Before I had this job, I was a partner at a large architectural engineering firm, and one of the gentlemen that was on the search committee that was interviewing me for this job, James Ford, owner of Ford AV and I'll never forget where he was sitting in the boardroom, he leaned forward and said, “Dave, you've got a really good gig, like why would you want this job?” And I'm like that's a great question, and I try to answer it, and he's like, “But Dave, here's the thing: You're running one of the largest consulting practices in the world and if you have a management meeting and you decide to go liveleft, then everybody's going to leave that meeting and they're going to go left, and the jobs that you're interviewing for you and your team are going to decide to go left, and then 50,000 people are going to tell you, you should go right!” I actually celebrate varied opinions. I do think a lot of people express an expertise that is perhaps inflated in their own perception. Trade shows, they're a complicated industry. I've been doing this now for eight years and I have people on my team that have forgotten twice what I'll ever know. The interplay between the various different constraints, the challenges that people throw out there as though they're simple challenges. Yeah, they're a little frustrating, but I signed up for it. Nobody made me do this job. I was forewarned, so maybe I'm the one that has an exaggerated impression of my expertise. Is part of the problem just simply that it's Florida and Florida is this eternally weird place at the best of times, but it's got a particular problem and people all the way up to the governor of the state who don't seem to recognize that, “Hey, maybe there's a bit of a problem happening here.”? Dave Labuskes: Yeah. I think I'll be a little more politically correct than that, and it was nice for you to try it, but it isn't my first rodeo here.  (Laughter) I wasn't trying to bait you. I just think that's a big part of it and the people, the armchair opinion makers who say why don't you just move it or why didn't you just do it in another city? There's a little bit of baggage associated with doing that but just simply speaking, it's a part of the country that has a particular exacerbated problem, but doesn't seem to want to recognize that it has an exacerbated problem. Dave Labuskes: It all comes from the jurisdictions and it all comes down to point of reference, right? You can also just say, is it the problem that the event is in the United States, right? Because if you look at the United States and compare the United States to other countries, we're not necessarily getting a straight-A report card. What I have said, and I know we don't want to have the same conversation I've had already with others, is that I don't think the brush that should be used in making that decision is Florida. I think the brush that we should use in painting that picture is Orange County. There's parts of California that may or may not be behaving in the same fashion you or I would do. So I think you have to look at where are you going to fly into, where you're going to be, where are you going to have dinner, where are you going to sleep? Those types of things, and when you get to that stage orange county this morning had 79.4% of their population over the age 18 having had one shot of the vaccine. They've got a mask order that was issued by the mayor strongly recommending that masks be worn inside any public space. They've got plummeting hospitalization rates, death rates, positivity rates at 12.4%, I believe.  So, I think, unfortunately the world and this country and all of the states have this polarization thing going on, and yeah, would it be more comfortable for people to attend an event somewhere else that are looking from afar and don't take time to do all that research? Probably. The headline, the abbreviated picture, is challenging, but I do think that there are people that are going to make a decision that attending a trade show weighed against other factors just isn't for them this year, and I think they'd make that decision regardless of where it is.  Yeah. I guess that's the other thing that you didn't know you were signing up for was having an extensive ability to talk in genealogical terms. Dave Labuskes: This is a true story, David. Last year, I came home from the office, and at dinner I said to my wife and son I spent an hour today reading a scientific study about the efficacy of washing your hands with cold water versus hot water, and that is not something I ever anticipated taking place in my career, I will admit that. (Laughter) By the way, it is just as good. You just don't tend to wash them as long because it's less comfortable, but...  I'm just impressed I was able to say epidemiology.  Dave Labuskes: Happy with that. These are words that were not part of our vocabulary two years ago, right?  Just drafting off of some of that: CEDIA which AVIXA has a relationship with because you co-own ISC had their event last week or the week before in Indianapolis and I won't go into how that went business-wise or anything else, but I'm curious if you had AVIXA folks there and did they see how things were done? I know they had signage and kind of cues on whether you are comfortable with people coming close and all that sort of stuff. Did those things work?  Were there things that you learned from that you can take away and apply to InfoComm?  Dave Labuskes: First part of the question: No, we didn't have anybody from AVIXA at that event that I'm aware of. Not that I know of, but I'm sure there were people there that were AVIXA members. We do have a close relationship with CEDIA. Obviously we have a partnership over a very large joint venture that owns and operates ISC and ISR and DSS. The show itself is owned by Emerald Expositions, and we have our conversational talking relationship with Emerald as well. In fact I have a call next week with Emerald to talk through lessons learned.  I was in Louisville, Kentucky a couple of weeks ago at a SISO conference, which is the Society of Independent Show Operators. So it's Emerald, Informa, and mostly the for-profit trade show organizers and AVIXA was invited to attend. The industry of trade show organizers and meeting planners and event planners, we've joined arms and we recognize that this is a problem for all of us that we have to share best practices with, we have to share learnings with, we have to talk about what works and doesn't work. It's kinda like the AV industry and as I'm learning more about it, the digital signage industry where people compete, but they also have a comradery where a rising tide lifts all ships kind of a thing, and so I think all trade show operators are working through this, associations as well are famously collaborating with regards to sharing information and learning and helping each other. So that's a good part of the pandemic.  I would imagine one of the things that all these organizations collectively learned, if they didn't already know it, is that the whole virtual trade show thing just really doesn't work. Does it? Dave Labuskes: It certainly didn't work in v1.0 of 2020. I think v1.5, and we're starting to get closer to 2.0, I think there's hope for it. The best visual I saw over the last 18 months is talking about books versus movies, and you don't convert a book to a movie by putting it on a podium and filming somebody turning the pages. And I think that probably is a closely apt description of what we all did with our first version of the virtual events. But I think you can tell a story, very effectively in print or in film, leveraging and celebrating the differences of the media.  Where I am at now and where AVIXA is driving towards, and you'll see more developments about this in the next couple months is more about how AVIXA delivers on its mission, leveraging physical  events and digital platforms, and how do they interface and interact with each other? How do they mutually benefit each other? What's good in one, that's not good in the other? Not a lot of good, special effects when you're reading a book, but a lot of great imagination when you're reading a book. Not a lot of ability to be character development through introspection in a movie, but it's really easy to do that when you're reading. I think if you look at education, you look at delivery of information from provider to consumer, that can be done pretty effectively digitally. I think about human interaction and the break time during class is almost impossible to create digitally. That doesn't mean it is impossible. So I see a lot of assumptions that we made in order to achieve X, we needed to convene people face-to-face being challenged. But I also think that all of the pundits that got online in March and April of last year and said, this is the end of face-to-face, and we're going to be digital for the rest of our lives, have seen that they were probably not right with that either.  I think the one thing that I took away, or what I have enjoyed about these virtual events is the ability to attend round tables panels presentations on demand. So I don't need to be somewhere or sit at a certain place, set aside things then at 10:00 AM, I'm going to watch this. Just the simple fact that I got stuff going on. I can't do this today or right now, that I could click on it and see. Yeah, somebody from Brand X explaining this to me on my terms, and if I'm bored, I just click out, I don't have to stand up and walk out of the room and embarrass the presenter or anything like that. That part I like. Dave Labuskes: I do too, and that's the irony of it is. If one of the things that all of us like is the absence of time and geography constraints, right? So it doesn't matter if that panel discussions take place in London or Nova Scotia or Orlando, you can still receive the outcome of that panel.  Why are we saying that they should be organized and delivered between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM Eastern time on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week? That's where I get to this. I think it's more about a digital presence and digital community, a place where people interact when it's appropriate for them to interact, where they can organize their interaction times. I'm old enough to have been in chat rooms on Prodigy and AOL and you remember you would organize with people like I'm going to be on at eight o'clock tonight for an hour, because you can only afford an hour. Because we were charged by the minute, and then I think that's what we have to recognize. So in that regard, I'm really excited about the fact that I'm not a trade show organizer, instead I'm an association that is committed to an industry and an industry community, and what I can do is build that community both digitally and physically.  What do you think of the suggestion that the days of the big macro show are cloudy and that regionalized events make more sense, so an InfoComm Southwest, an ISE UK, that sort of thing? And granted that was tried a little bit in the past year, but that was out of necessity as opposed to design.  Dave Labuskes: Yeah, I'm intrigued by it. But I think the loudest proponents of it are the attendees, not the exhibitors and the attendees don't pay. Doing ten small shows only costs a little less than doing one big show or less than doing then ten times doing one big show. The cost of doing a show has a fixed amount. Even in the smallest show, you're going to pay an X and then get to the big show, you may only be paying 2X where if you're doing a regional show, like 10 times, you are close to 10X, and your ROI on each of those events is smaller because your audience is small.  Now that's using all the old rules. So if we go back to the last question, if I can segment an audience for an exhibitor and say, I'm going to bring people that have spending authority over half a million dollars that have a project next three months, it's going to require a high-end audio system. That's going to change that algebra, and so I don't think you throw it out the window, but economics has a factor in these things and it's easy to say I would rather go to a small event in Nashville, but the problem is I have to find somebody to pay for it, and even if you say I'm happier to go to a small event in Nashville, I bet you don't want to spend $195 for a ticket to go to that event?  I get the hunger for it. I get the desire for it, but I don't see a business model around it right now. We've never been successful at small events being profitable. There have been good strategies like, before ISE launched. We did small roadshow events from country to country, it was before my time, but I hear stories from the old timers about the amazing sort of experience of going from hotel room or hotel conference to hotel conference across from Warsaw to Budapest to Rome type thing. And we've done them in advance of launching our Bangkok show. We did it in advance of launching our Mumbai show, but those become feeders to a larger event that has a more sustainable business model. We did a lot of what we used to call round tables, for example, we did the AVIXA round table in Baltimore where you'd have 15, 20, maybe 30 people come to them, and so you were spending a lot of money on an event that served 15, 20 or 30 people, and we just felt like there were better ways of spending the industry's money than that.  The demise of Digital Signage Expo certainly raised the eyebrows at AVIXA and got you guys thinking, although you've always had digital signage as a component, you've had pavilions for many years, but there was an opportunity and a sense that something needed to fill that void. Granted, it's been refilled to some degree since then, but the show hasn't happened yet so we'll see how that comes off.  How do you build up the digital signage affinity for InfoComm? Cause I've gone for many years, but I go to have a look at the gear. I'm not a gear head, but I write about it and everything else, but I don't really see it as an end-user show where a big retailer, those kinds of people are going to come to that they maybe they send their gearheads, but more likely it's the integrators that sell into big retail and so on are there are there, so how do you make all that kind of come together over the next couple of years? Dave Labuskes: Boy, there's so much in that question, David. We should talk more often, I enjoy this. Yes, it is an unfortunate demise and it didn't get folks in the AVIXA thinking. Yes, we've been looking at the digital signage industry for a long time. I do think it's a community within the larger industry that needs to be celebrated, and that's that other point with regards to small regional shows versus big shows. I think we see lots more shows within shows taking place, and I think that's probably the right solution, and I'm biased. I think AVIXA has the right place to build a home within a home for the digital signage community.  First of all: there was this interesting dynamic between the association and the show operator, right? From an association perspective AVIXA has been having conversations with DSF, with DS-LATAM, with digital signage of Asia, and the various different entities in Europe. When you move from our association to association, one of the ways I think I actually described it to Rich Ventura, he and I were talking probably years ago and it's like you and I, David, are best friends, but our dads owns the competing gas stations on the corner, and so we can go to school and everything and be friends there but when we came home there's limits.  That was kinda how I felt like it was and I felt like there's a window there to not have that dynamic. Now, some of that's changed and I respect Questex. I respect Paul and don't know him well, but I know him and I've had conversations with him and he's a smart guy and I believe he's committed to delivering a successful event. I think it's being honest, looking at what does an organization want, what is the community best one? And making honest agreements and commitments to each other, and then keeping them. There are advantages to working together, and I think the end goal is that “home within a home” and “a community within a community.”  I think the challenge and opportunity for digital signage and InfoComm is the scale of the InfoComm show and the specificity and the heart and relationship with the digital signage community, and I think if we work together, we can build that home within a home. I think it can be more than a guest room. It can be an in-law apartment. It can be a place where it's identified and that's, yeah, I'm disappointed that you're not going to be there, and I know the mixture is just one manifestation of that home within a home, and we look forward to being able to do it in the future.  Absolutely. One of the logistical problems or mechanical problems, so to speak, with a big show like an InfoComm is: yes, you've created these pavilions through the years of digital signage pavilion and some of the vendors have been in that, designated zone, so to speak, but the biggest players are the display manufacturers, and they've always had their spots, their Primo spots, and they're serving a whole bunch of audiences at InfoComm, not just the digital signage people. So how do you figure out a way to create a show within a show when you've got Sony in the front row, Samsung's got a giant booth in the middle of the hall and so on. You're never going to be able to herd them all into one hall, so to speak?  Dave Labuskes: Yeah, so what do you do then? I think what you have to do and we're down to the details of tactics, right? But I think you start to curate attendees' journeys. You use content as the honey to attract and people will come where content is and content can be delivered where people are, and that's the challenge of starting a trade show, but we've done that. We know how to form a trade show and it takes time and it takes continual feeding until it becomes a self-feeding cycle, and then you have to create a journey that is guided a bit so the attendees that are coming from retail or the attendees that are coming from the advertising agencies can get to where they will be able to extract value and some of that will require tour guides, not maps and serendipity, because it's too big to just let somebody lose, but we have that problem now with end users in general at the show, you described as gearheads, but about 40% of the attendees at a typical InfoComm are end user buyers. It's part of what makes that show so valuable to exhibitors.  A lot of them are brought there by channel members. The consultants are bringing their customers, the integrators are bringing their customers. But a lot of them are brought there by us too, with promoting them and developing conference content that would be of interest to them, creating a nucleus of community. It's all very explicit, but it doesn't happen by chance. There are hosted buyers that are brought in to shows around the world. There are groups that are sponsored. There are other associations that are partnered with. Richard runs our Asian subsidiary. He's a genius at identifying influential associations within the geographies and partnering with them to offer programs. Organizations like the Indian Architects Association are partnered with our InfoComm Mumbai event, and they are holding content conferences for architects in conjunction with our event. All of our channels want architects at it. Those types of strategies are part of the town and the team that works on these. Last question, looking ahead a few months to ISE and it's hard to do the crystal ball thing, but I gather things are calmer in Spain. I don't hear very many people at all saying, hell no, we're not going to Barcelona or anything else, maybe that'll bubble up, who knows? But is ISC in Barcelona going to be normal-ish? Dave Labuskes: Yes, I think so. Again, like you said, the crystal balls are not crystal clear and now, after the last series of conversations, I think I'm going to put the crystal ball into the same place where I put “pivot” and “agile” and “unprecedented” but yeah, the biggest indicator that you would have about and event like ISC at this stage five months out is sold show floor space, right?  I don't think we've even opened registration for attendees yet, and show floor sales are, I think they're probably about 8% off of 2020. I guess there's no such thing as quoting me because we're recording this, but it's within that ballpark of the size of the last event at the Rye, which is, really the last event to compare it to. So if it's 90% of that size, 80% of that size, I think that's, that absolutely fits into your technical definition of normal.  And there were lots of people who said, because you're going to Barcelona, as awesome a place as it is, it may mean you see a slight drop because people who might go to ISC in Amsterdam, because they can drive there, maybe would not go all the way to Barcelona?  Dave Labuskes: Yeah, but there's other people that are going to drive to Barcelona that wouldn't have driven to Amsterdam. And yeah not a hundred percent a repeat audience, but… Well, I'm not driving to Barcelona.  Dave Labuskes: Yeah, me neither. (Laughter) That's those armchair spectators that you talked about earlier, right? We did the homework to make a determination about that, and we love the Rye. We would love to have stayed at the Rye, but the Rye isn't big enough to hold the show as it was moving forward in the future and it was starting to have a negative impact on attendee experience and you start to have those different factors impact a show and reach the value of the show.  I'll just be happy if I can find my way around.  Dave Labuskes: Yeah, it's a beautiful city. I'll tell you what it's like. It's the opposite of the Rye. It was one of the things I joked with Mike about. Finally I figured out how to get through the Eye without getting lost, and now we've decided to move the show.  Yeah, me too.  All right. I appreciate you taking some time with me. I suspect you're a busy fellow these days. Dave Labuskes: Never too busy for you, sir. Congratulations on your recent deal. I'm really happy for you.  Thank you!

QuestEx Gold & Copper Ltd., formerly Colorado Resources Ltd., is a Canada-based mineral exploration company. The Company is engaged in exploring gold and copper with a focus on the Golden Triangle and Toodoggone areas of British Columbia. The property portfolio includes the Castle property, a porphyry copper-gold project located in the Red Chris mining district of the Golden Triangle neighbouring GT Gold's Tatogga property, and Newcrest Mining's GJ property. Other properties include KSP, North ROK, Coyote, and Kingpin in the Golden Triangle, Sofia in the Toodoggone district, and Heart Peaks and Hit in other strategic districts within British Columbia.

HEAR THE HEADLINES – European Union Enforces Single-Use Plastics Rules | Easing Iranian Sanctions Benefits Tea Trade | Kenya Tea Auction Prices Plummet| GUEST – Rare tea book collector Donald Maxton, Tea Book Shop, Springfield, New Jersey| NEWSMAKER – FaithAnn Bailes, content and conference manager for World Tea Expo at Questex| FEATURES – Tea Biz this week travels to Las Vegas for a report on the first in-person edition of World Tea Expo in two years. and then to New Jersey where rare tea book collector Donald Maxton shares with Kyle Whittington his fascination with tea texts and ephemera dating to the 1880s.Together AgainWorld Tea Expo + Conference was forced to take a two-year COVID hiatus, returning to Las Vegas last week as a face-to-face event co-located for the first time with the rebranded Bar & Restaurant Expo. Attendees comingled well says Faith Ann Bailes, content and conference manager for World Tea Expo + Conference at Questex, and one of the original co-founders of World Tea Expo in 2003.A Rare FindWhat makes a tea book special? asks Tea Book Club founder Kyle Whittington. Rare book collector Donald A. Maxton says that he first considers the age of a published work, which often reflects the culture of the time, and then interesting and unusual designs, and, finally, the use of color.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT When news broke back in March that the live events and publishing firm Questex had bought the assets of Digital Signage Expo, there was, understandably, a lot of interest and speculation about whether that might mean the defunct trade show and conference would be revived. It will be, likely around the same timeframe as the past, and back in Las Vegas. It is also likely it will have the same name - though it might just be called DSE.  What's also clear is that it will not be a simple re-boot of the old show - which makes perfect sense, since the Digital Signage Expo that ran for 15+ years would politely be described as spinning its wheels - with attendance flatlined and exhibitor counts shrinking. I contacted Questex when news first broke of the DSE assets being acquired at auction, and have had a few conversations since then with the company, including its CEO Paul Miller. I wasn't sure how much he could tell me, but we had a terrific, very open chat about what went down, and his company's thinking around a new and different DSE in 2022.  Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT David: Paul. Thank you for joining me. Who is Questex?  Paul Miller: Hi, Dave, thanks for having me first and foremost. Questex is a media and information services business that produces events alongside its media sites. We have been in existence as a company for about 15 years, just over. We are a company that focuses on really five or six markets, that is the life sciences and healthcare markets, the technology markets, and then we also focus on the areas of travel hospitality & wellness, and all of that is wrapped up around a focus on the experience economy. That's who we are and we do events, we do media websites, we do all kinds of connecting of buyers and sellers in those areas.  David: So of those properties that you have in the context of the Pro AV world, what would people who are listening to this most likely know, LDI or the Nightclub & Bar Show?  Paul Miller: Yeah. They would probably know our Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas, mainly because that would have been in history. Some cases would collaborate with DSE and in some cases would just sit alongside so they would know that.  They probably would know the Lighting Dimension Show, the LDI show that you mentioned. Yeah, that's also one that is quite well known in this space. I would say outside of that, there are events that I think are relevant in the hotel area, in the spa area, in the gym area where we're connecting owners of hotels & operators of hotels and gyms and spas with various people that want to sell into those spaces. So of course digital signage is a huge area for all of those end users. So they may not know those, but certainly, I think they're areas that we think are very relevant.  David: We'll get into acquiring assets of DSE, but I was curious when that happened, so I looked up Questex to see who they are and how they work and I get a sense that your typical approach is you have publishing wing as a foundational thing that kind of sets the content for that particular vertical market, and then you grow and market the live event off of that. Is that a fair assessment?  Paul Miller: Yeah, I think that's a good assessment, Dave. We believe that we should be engaged with communities 365 days through the year because people don't always wait for an event before they make their decision. So we want to help them through that buying process through content that attracts them to our websites. As they interact with that content, we like to use that data to produce what we would consider a very relevant show. So when you come to the show, it's content that's been popular throughout the year, probably speakers that have been writing content that you can come and meet live. So we see a full connection between how people in the B2B world look for content, and how they go through that buying process, and the event is part of that.  In many cases, it's an exciting part of it, because people come to actually buy. In some cases, they come to network. In some cases, they come to get educated, and in some cases, all three. So, that idea that we would just do an event, and then see you next year is not really in our DNA. We're more, “Hey, we want to serve you throughout the year, and we'd love to see you live at the event if relevant.”  David: And I also get a sense that that the events look different depending on the vertical. So you don't necessarily do a full trade show with exhibits for a certain vertical because it really doesn't fit, whereas, for other verticals, it may.  Paul Miller: That actually is a really astute comment. I think sometimes in our world, not the digital signage world. This is our world at Questex. We sometimes talk about events a little bit like somebody saying, “I'm going on vacation to Africa,” and your first question is what country you're going to because you're going to have a different experience depending on where you're going.  In the events world too, there are various flavors. In some events, it truly is sort of a cash and carry. You bring in your goods, you set up your store and people come in and they buy your goods, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. By the way, I do not think that applies to digital signage, certainly on the whole, but that there is a flavor of event that we do that sort of emulates that, that is very much you come in to buy stuff and the exhibitors are there to sell stuff and success is how much did I sell, frankly? And then there are the educational type events which sort of surround large conferences. I think you'd be familiar with these: great speakers, good education, and some really good networking off-piece at the hotel bar afterward, et cetera, and then you can get into some really specific events which are matchmaking buyers with sellers. This particular buyer is looking for this solution and we're going to put you in a room with this seller. They tend to be more intimate, very VIP, in some cases, we will host those buyers. So we tend to be, and I think your comment is right on. We tend to look for what fits what element of the market at the right time. I think where it gets exciting, Dave, and this probably leads us into sort of our thoughts around the Digital Signage Expo is that in many cases you can do all three. You can have a great conference, you can have a great show, trade show floor, and you can do great matchmaking, and it doesn't work all the time. We have a feeling that it is relevant to DSE from what we've been hearing from the market, but you're absolutely right on the money. We don't really have a one size fits all approach as a company, and I think given the communities we serve, that would be very difficult for us to shoehorn in certain templates if you will.  David: Right. So back in, I think you said it was April, but you acquired the assets of Exponation. What did you actually acquire?  Paul Miller: We acquired the assets of Digital Signage Expo which would have included the trademarks, the websites, the database, the customer database. I think that was about it. A few other URLs, websites that sort of surrounded the industry a little bit. But everything that Exponation had that was DSE-related is what we acquired.  David: And how did that happen? Was there like a Broker who came to you and said, “Hey, we have this”, or do you have people who just pay attention to this sort of thing?  Paul Miller: No, it was strange, to be honest. The last year has been strange in many ways. Firstly, we're very aware at Questex of DSC. We had, as mentioned at the start, we had seen the show, we had visited the show. I wandered over to the show while at our Nightclub & Bar event. David: Just to sober up? (Laughter) Paul Miller: Yeah, actually, just to see what it's like at a B2B show that isn't serving alcohol, which is a different field, and actually we had been impressed for many years with the show. We certainly didn't really know the understories and what was really going on, but from a very shallow view, I would say, the show looked very professional. There were great companies, and there was good buzz, and we always said to each other that, that looks like a great event, and that was about it, just for the record.  Then I forget the actual timing, but sometime in the fall of last year, we obviously saw the story that Exponation had filed for Chapter 7, and that sort of alerted us about that a lot of us that are in the events business, the pandemic has been devastating. It wasn't that it was a surprise, but to be honest as having that sort of very narrow and shallow knowledge of the show, we were like, wow that's a shame that, that was a good looking event and we're probably going to see more of this was our initial reaction. Then what happened, Dave is that we got a notice from, I think it was the bankruptcy court. I can't remember who it was, but anyway, we got a notice that the assets were going to be auctioned to help raise funds, for those people that the debt was owed to if you will. So we said, okay we like these assets and we've got some things that we could bring to the event, or this was before we knew, by the way, that might be relevant. So we entered into an auction process and it was the first time in my career that I've ever been through such a process and it truly was a person on the phone, basically banging the gavel and saying, “Yep,  sold to the people at the back,” and that ended up being us. We obviously then did a lot of homework before we went into the auction. We got our hands around a little bit. What was the size of the show? What was the target audience for the show? What do we think we could bring to the show? And it checked a lot of boxes for us. Yeah, we went into the auction seriously and we won that auction, and then, of course, you find what actually have we acquired? And that was a fascinating sort of few weeks of research.  David: I've spoken with you in the past, I've spoken with someone else from your company and a consultant, Brent Gleason, who you've engaged to help out with this.  I'm curious, as you've done your kind of due diligence and exploration of the industry, what have you been hearing about the industry, your impressions on that, but also, we can go from there to what are you going to do?  Paul Miller: Sure. So firstly I have to say, and I think you know this that there wasn't a lot of ho-hum type of commentary in the research when we went to the industry. People were very passionate about space, very passionate about this product. Not all of it positive. I think there've been some negative experiences for certain people, but what we did find, Dave, was that this is an industry that is going through terrific growth and that growth looks to be sustainable, certainly, through the next half a decade if not beyond in our opinion, so great sort of 7.5% CAGR growth rates, touches a lot of verticals, and I know that people listening and yourself would know this, but this was our learning, touching verticals as diverse as healthcare, through to retail, through to hotels, houses of worship, hotels. So that was really interesting for us. We also found and heard that the industry actually wanted a place to gather. They do see this as an industry that has its unique personality. It's not all about one thing or another thing, and there are definitely some trends that are coming in, the digital out of home space for instance, that in my opinion, is akin to what happened between print and the internet, back in the late nineties, a lot of data starts to be kicked off and a lot of backend technology starts to get into play. With digital signage becoming the forefront of that, it's where people first interact. So we got very excited very quickly. Some of the comments frankly, were hard to swallow or people saying, “Hey, the event was not what it used to be.” “It was starting to lose a little bit of its luster.”  Obviously when the show was canceled last year. Some people were really quite upset about the lack of refunds and what went on there, and I fully understand that. We had to cancel a lot of events last year as well. It was a very tough scenario for everybody, but the industry we felt as we got into it had an opinion, and it was a strong opinion and people wanted to talk. We had incoming people calling us saying, “I want to talk to you about what you've bought here and let you know what you've got.” And actually Brad was one of those, by the way, Brad said, look, I have a lot of history with the show, and I'd love to help reinvent it along the lines that I feel, and I think what the industry feels it should have been going in any way. So look, we have the ability to “start again” in many ways. I don't think the Exponation had that ability. They had a product, they had to try to grow that product. We've acquired a set of assets, but we have a real strong ability to listen to the community and try to create a new experience for the community that they're telling us they want. And that's unique. So, we purposely were have been extremely patient. We just said, let's listen, and the more we listen, the more we're finding that the industry wants an event, it wants a place to gather, but it doesn't really want your grandmother's DSC.  I think the event has reached its limit, if you will, in terms of value and people wanted to do something else going forward, without losing some of the great things about the event, seems like it was a fantastic place for the industry to network and meet once a year. We don't want to lose that. That's a super reason for having an event. So, it's been a real experience. I mean, this is a very good acquisition from my experience, acquired through auction had gone into Chapter 7 through the pandemic and it has a set of stakeholders that really want to have a say. I mean, nobody said, sorry, I don't want to talk about it, or, I don't really have a comment. Everybody had something to say and I think that's great. That shows some passion. It shows some engagement. It's just that not all of the comments were positive, I have to be honest. David: Oh, for sure. When we chatted in the past, I said, I don't think there's enough to do at a trade show with a whole bunch of exhibit stands and everything, the way it was done in the past. There's a diminishing number of companies that want to spend those kinds of dollars, and I just didn't see it. Is that what you're hearing more broadly?  Paul Miller: Not really, no. I get your point, and we actually gave people the ability to tell us what they really want. Now, I will say that the number one thing that's coming back is that we want to meet people that are going to buy our product. So we want to meet, we don't really want to just get together and talk to each other. But it's a very expensive meeting to just talk to other people in the industry. So there's been a lot of questions to us like, do you reach people in the hotel industry? Do you reach people in the restaurant space? Do you reach people in other areas where digital signage is needed and can be engaged with?  And when we've explained, as I did up top, that these are the markets we're in, people have gone, if you can get those folks to attend an event, we absolutely will bring a booth and we absolutely will exhibit, but you gotta bring buyers. You're not going to get away with putting up an exhibit and meeting without competitors across the aisle, that's not enough.  David: Right. I know with Exponation, they worked their butts off trying to get brands to show up, to a level that they were putting them on advisory boards and things like that, just to make them feel like they should be there.  Paul Miller: Yeah. Look, I've been in the events space for sort of 25 years. It is not easy, particularly when, and this is where it comes back to the strategy of Questex, I think compared with Exponation, we're a huge believer in content. I think I've said this to you before content is still king or queen, but the kingdom is data. Once you have people and you've attracted them, around content, it's really about understanding what their needs are, what they're looking for, engaging with them, and I think if you're a pure-play event company, what you do is you put on an event once a year, you're sort of reliant on a lot of partners to produce that content for you, and not in your environment. So you don't get the data as much, and I think that makes it very difficult in complete deference to what Exponation was trying to do.  I think they were trying to do the right thing, but when you don't have that daily engagement with the community, it's quite hard to hit it out of the park on every single thing. You're going to find your content probably gets a bit tired, sometimes the loudest voice gets to be the speaker, as opposed to the one that everybody wants to hear. There are certain things that data takes out of the room. It takes that emotion out of the room and it says like this audience is engaging with this type of content, that's what they want to see live. That I think gives you a little bit more data-driven decision-making around what the industry wants, as opposed to my gut feel or what somebody just told me at the bar last week at the show.  David: So, based on everything you've been hearing, everything your team has been doing, do you have the bones of an idea of what we're going to see? Paul Miller: Yeah we do. I think that's a good description. I'm not sure we're fully fleshed out, but I can certainly tell you a few things that we're going to do.  Number one, we are going to relaunch the show. Just to be clear from the top, we are going to relaunch the show. We do think that the show has to be repositioned somewhat to be a broader show to bring in those customers, as I mentioned, We're looking at experiences around a broad-based agenda of life and business and mid the re-emergence of society and the global economy. So this is more about where does digital signage fit in the “roaring 20S”? So we are looking to bring back the event. We're looking at next Spring and we are looking at Las Vegas. I can't go much further than that at this point in time, because we are obviously trying to secure venues and we're trying to secure dates, and that by the way, is easier said than done in a post-pandemic environment and everybody wants dates. But we do have our Nightclub & Bar rebranded as our Bar & Restaurant event in Las Vegas next spring. There's the possibility of bringing that together again if you will. We will have an exhibit floor but also adding things like show floor experiences, very inclusive. You know, “let's demonstrate some applications, do some showcases, have some themed presentation stages.” So a lot of buzz on the show floor, but at the same time, a really engaging conference program, lots of curated presentations, tracks based on innovative applications, why do this, what are the outcomes, what you should be looking for? And last but not least we are hoping to have multiple layers of networking at the event. That's one thing that this community told us is, “Please don't lose the networking!”  As I think, you know more than I know, great parties, great places for the industry to come together and celebrate, learn to buy, to sell. So yeah, we were even looking at guides around Las Vegas itself, tours of installations so people can learn, form real-life applications, not just what somebody might tell you what could happen. Let's curate some tours, and we do that by the way, for our Bar & Restaurant event, we take people behind the scenes at a Nightclub behind the scenes of a Vegas restaurant, so they can see everything from point of sale applications through to what's going on in the kitchen, and how does the food come out? We think that the audience, the community is telling us it wants more, hands-on more, show me what works, more education, more demos and bring it all together as an event that is an experience beyond just, ”I walk the show floor and I meet a couple of friends at the bar.” David: Yeah. I've certainly heard many times and when I did a little survey asking about, where should a trade show go? The comment that's stuck in my head was, I know when I go to something like DSE, I'm landing, and that's what I'm doing that week, or for the next two, three days, that's my subject matter versus an ISE or an InfoComm, which are great shows, but they're Omni shows covering a whole bunch of different vertical industries and technologies and everything else and you don't have this aggregate of people who are just there for digital signage. Now you could go to a party and talk to 20 people, and they're all doing things that have nothing to do with digital signage, but they're in AV.  Paul Miller: Yeah, by the way, I think both are relevant. A lot of respect for ISE and InfoComm and the AVIXA Association in general, I think they do great stuff by the way. And I think there is relevance in attending a show that is broader than just the sort of industry that you're in. I think that's where you do see adjacencies and ideas that might be applicable. But what was loud and clear from this community was we wanted our own place. There's enough going on in the digital signage space for us to need to focus on our industry, our solutions, our ecosystem for us to want our own place, and that, by the way, was one of the key learnings over the last 8 to 10 weeks of listening to people.  There wasn't one person who said, I don't think the industry needs its own place. There are a few people who said can I afford the time to go to all of these events? And I think that's a relevant comment and that's all about saying, well, we have to win your respect to get your time, and we have to have a program that you walk away after two or three days or a week, and you go, “Wow, I'm going to recommend this to my friends because these guys really put something on that it creates a fear of missing out if I'm not there, and I think more importantly than all of that actually creates business interactions. People actually do write orders and they do write RFPs at the event.” That's what we're here for at the end of the day.  So yeah, I think the need for an event that's focused on this particular community is clear: that's actually a box that was checked very clearly. it wasn't a 50-50 decision. David: There will be people who listen to this and think that's great that you're doing a show, but spring in Las Vegas or just spring in general in the trade show industry is very crowded. There's a lot going on and you're putting this in between ISC and InfoComm, which are AV shows, there's NAB, all these other ones that happening around then there, I've heard many people say it would be lovely if an event like this was in the fall instead. Paul Miller: Yeah. Unfortunately, the fall is also busy. It's got its own interesting issues and particularly around the pandemic where shows have been moved around, and they're off cycles. The feedback that we got, Dave, was again, you're right, “It's crowded. Please don't put it over the top of another show because we don't want to be forced into a decision. Do we go to this or this?”  The feedback we got was, “We liked where it was before,” which was, around that April timeframe, spring timeframe. So we've taken that into account and we didn't have any huge set of people saying, “Hey, move it to November or get it out of the way.” The other option we had by the way was to think about, do we put it alongside our lighting show, which is in the fall, October, November.  The more we get into it, the more it becomes clear to us that actually, the lighting show is not as relevant as an audience, they tend to be lighting designers, people that are doing the rigging of lighting, et cetera. A better audience would be people that are buying stuff for their restaurant for us. So yeah, we're never going to get a date that's going to satisfy everybody, unfortunately. Our feeling is we have the best chance to bring the right set of buyers to this event in the spring of next year.  David: And if you do it somewhat in tandem with an existing show like your Bar & Restaurant show, I imagine there's some efficiency around Ops people, like, you don't have to bring double the staff. You may bring more than you would for one show, but not of double compliment.  Paul Miller: Yeah, the efficiencies come with, obviously the show place itself. So if we do go to the Las Vegas convention center, obviously you get efficiency. If you do two in one, if you will.  From our team perspective, maybe Dave, in terms of we could send seven people rather than two sets of five, for instance, which is where I think you're going. But I'm not sure, I think what we're looking at for this event is and also by the way, for the Bar & Restaurant event, as you can imagine, the experiences there are pretty high end. You've got people launching new dreams. You've got people launching new bar and restaurant concepts. So I think that it would be the same as at a reinvigorated DSE. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not looking for cost efficiencies, let me put it that way. That wouldn't be the reason for doing it.  David: When do you think you'll have a launch or an announcement saying we're going to do this?  Paul Miller: We're in the midst of recruiting an advisory board. We're getting some great traction there, by the way. I can give you a few names if that helps. I would say we are a matter of weeks away from a full announcement and maybe not many weeks.  David: Yeah, and I guess you really have to be because planning cycles are long, right? People are already budgeting for 2022.  Paul Miller: We gotta get moving, yeah. It's not just the budgeting aspect of this. It's the sales team that has to be implemented. You've got to have your content team in place. Your advisory board needs to meet so we can start to get around the sort of flavor of the show. So no, we gotta get our skates on, no doubt about it. David: So who are some of your advisors that you can say?  Paul Miller: Some that I can say, and by the way, there are a number of others that we think are going to be really exciting for the community to hear about, but we've got Rich Ventura, B2B Business line manager at Sony, I think previously the chairman of the DSF. We've got Rick Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer for Billups, leading voice in the out-of-home industry, and by the way, a play on the advisory board, just for the record is these four quadrants, there's the industry veterans, those people that really know this space, the new voices, and the new faces. We said we're going to reinvigorate, let's get some new voices. So Jackie Walker, digital signage subject matter expert at Publicis Sapient is one of those.  We've got a number of others. Laura Davis Taylor retail & reality, we've got some people here that I think are going to bring some really great new voices and faces alongside the veterans, also strategic partners that we're looking at, and of course, people like yourself in the media. We'd like to have a balance of all of the above and if we're going to deliver on our promise of a reinvigorated show, I think the definition of insanity is doing something the same way and then expecting a different outcome, so we've got to make some changes here and reinvigorate the advisory board, get new names and voices and faces involved, but don't throw away the baby with the bathwater either, make sure you've still got the people that know what they're talking about.  David: The last question I suppose is will it be called Digital Signage Expo or it'd be something else, or is that TBD? Paul Miller: Yeah, that's a great question. We have, interestingly, sometimes for how things happen without doing more sort of fundamental research, but internally we're using the DSE acronym quite a lot. I don't know is it Digital Signage Expo? Is it Digital Signage Experience? Is it DSE? At the moment where we're sticking with brand equity. Words and all that come with digital signage expo, but it's interesting internally, and we do refer a lot to it as DSE, and sometimes that just turned into the experience as opposed to the expo. So a little bit more about the industry, a little bit less about the product itself. I would say a personal front, from what I've heard from customers, Digital Signage Expo is fine. People are calling it DSE anyway, and I don't know if I want to go through a massive rebranding exercise at the same time we're doing a relaunch of the event.  David: Yeah. It's more of the communications and the people you bring on board and everything else.  Paul Miller: I think so, yeah. At the end of the day, I think it is: have we delivered a product that people go to and say you know what, these guys are on the path to creating a must-go-to event, we did some business, it was great to meet the community again, and I learned a lot. If we can check those boxes, I think we can then start to think about, okay, what now? And at the moment, we're just fully focused on producing something that people walk away from Vegas going, “These guys nailed it, they listened and we've got an event that's a must go for our industry, and they want to listen to some more on how we can make improvements from stage one.” So I think at the end of the day, that's what really matters. Yes, people have a lot of opinions. Yes, there's a lot of baggage. Yes, there's a lot of words that we're using right now that I hope resonate with the industry. But at the end of the day, it's did we deliver?  David: All right, Paul, thank you. I appreciate your time.  Paul Miller: Dave, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.  

In this episode of AV+ we have Alan Brawn on to discuss Digital Signage Certification Week. We have headlines from the latest news of the week including Digital Signage Expo being purchased by Questex, VetsinTech Academy offering military veterans tech training, a Solutionz digital signage project at a cannabis dispensary, and more. We also discuss our recent profiles of CEC, ArtMedia Corp., and our recent Distance Learning Deep Dive.

In this episode of AV+ we have Alan Brawn on to discuss Digital Signage Certification Week. We have headlines from the latest news of the week including Digital Signage Expo being purchased by Questex, VetsinTech Academy offering military veterans tech training, a Solutionz digital signage project at a cannabis dispensary, and more. We also discuss our recent profiles of CEC, ArtMedia Corp., and our recent Distance Learning Deep Dive.

QuestEx Gold & Copper Ltd., formerly Colorado Resources Ltd., is a Canada-based mineral exploration company. The Company is engaged in exploring gold and copper with a focus on the Golden Triangle and Toodoggone areas of British Columbia. The property portfolio includes the Castle property, a porphyry copper-gold project located in the Red Chris mining district of the Golden Triangle neighbouring GT Gold's Tatogga property, and Newcrest Mining's GJ property. Other properties include KSP, North ROK, Coyote, and Kingpin in the Golden Triangle, Sofia in the Toodoggone district, and Heart Peaks and Hit in other strategic districts within British Columbia. Company page: https://questex.ca/ Explore More Here: https://cruxinvestor.com Join our Club's waitlist: https://cruxinvestor.com/club For FREE unbiased investment information, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook: https://twitter.com/cruxinvestor https://www.linkedin.com/company/crux-investor/https://www.facebook.com/cruxinvestor If you got value from this interview, please subscribe. 

In todays episode Julie chats with Diane Waltersdorf, conference director for the International Esthetics, Cosmetics and Spa Conference.We talk about the return to in person events for the spa industry, precautions they are planning to take and education trends for their Las Vegas and NYC events this summer.More about Diane:Diane Waltersdorf has been programming education for the International Esthetics, Cosmetics and Spa Conferences since 2006. IECSC is organized by Questex, the leading information and events company focused on the experience economy. Prior to joining Questex, Diane's event management experience spanned decades across several industries in a sales capacity, but in the late 90s she found her joy in conference planning and providing people with the education for their professional development. A lifelong New Englander looking for new adventures, Diane made a cross country move to Eastern Washington state in the middle of the pandemic and in her spare time enjoys exploring the Inland Northwest.TO LEARN MORE OR TO REGISTER FOR 2021 SHOWShttps://www.iecsc.com/FOLLOW IECSC ON INSTAGRAMhttps://www.instagram.com/iecsc/SPAHIVE FB COMMUNITY:https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheSpaHive/SPAHIVE BY JMPANKEY INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jmpankey